Comments on: Ubuntu Gutsy: complaints http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/ Except not really. Fri, 25 Jul 2008 00:05:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 By: Ventanazul http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-15386 Ventanazul Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:13:05 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-15386 <strong>Is Your Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Running Too Slow?...</strong> Some days ago I noticed Woodcarver, the workstation where I spend most of my time, running too slow. A quick look at top found the problem: trackerd, the daemon used by Meta Tracker. And even when I like the idea of having a desktop search engine I ha... Is Your Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon Running Too Slow?…

Some days ago I noticed Woodcarver, the workstation where I spend most of my time, running too slow. A quick look at top found the problem: trackerd, the daemon used by Meta Tracker.

And even when I like the idea of having a desktop search engine I ha…

]]> By: Eoghan http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-14249 Eoghan Tue, 06 Nov 2007 09:50:09 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-14249 Re: Mounting - I had installed ntfs-config on Feisty. Uninstalling it on Gutsy + reboot fixed the lack of mounting of my USB drive & Windows partition Re: Mounting - I had installed ntfs-config on Feisty. Uninstalling it on Gutsy + reboot fixed the lack of mounting of my USB drive & Windows partition

]]> By: Maxo http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13808 Maxo Thu, 01 Nov 2007 18:23:06 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13808 Regarding ACPI, this is a problem on my laptop and using acpi=force fixes it. On bootup it tells me that acpi=force is needed to make acpi work so somehow it is detecting this. If you are not seeing that message then it may not be an acpi problem. I wonder if you boot off of the live CD if you can use the shut down button and get a normal shut down. If that is the case then it may not be a problem with Gutsy as a problem with the Feisty-to-Gutsy upgrade scripts making something not right. Regarding ACPI, this is a problem on my laptop and using acpi=force fixes it. On bootup it tells me that acpi=force is needed to make acpi work so somehow it is detecting this. If you are not seeing that message then it may not be an acpi problem.
I wonder if you boot off of the live CD if you can use the shut down button and get a normal shut down. If that is the case then it may not be a problem with Gutsy as a problem with the Feisty-to-Gutsy upgrade scripts making something not right.

]]> By: Gijs http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13733 Gijs Wed, 31 Oct 2007 10:50:51 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13733 Everyone, thanks a lot! In order of appearance: <ul> <li>Tracker didn't appear in the Services administration app for me. I told its own "Indexing preferences" that I didn't want it to do anything. Disks still kept spinning so I killed it, and apt-get removed it. Disks were still spinning, so I tried the evms removal solution John mentioned. That helped. A lot. Thanks!</li> <li>After the aforementioned changes and adding "apm=off acpi=force" to my grub default boot options (per ced's suggestion to "google things") to see if that'd convince it to shut down, I rebooted. After that magically my partitions were automounted again. Yay! (As a note, I did think about checking /etc/fstab - nothing was out of the ordinary there as far as I could tell - but I probably should have mentioned that in the original post already)</li> <li>I used to have kubuntu-desktop installed here as well, when I was testing a patch for Firefox that was supposed to make windows blink in taskbars consistently on Linux... but I removed kubuntu-desktop and had assumed it would have been smart enough to remove everything else as well. Guess not. Clearing anything KDE I could find from Synaptic helped. Now it just has the "Printing notification icon" there, and I guess I will probably manage to get that to go away later today. So thanks for that one, Patrick and ced.</li> <li>I've simply refrained from putting in cd-roms for now, and told the "Removable Drives and Media" preferences that I don't want it to automatically play cd's, dvd's or other things - I do want them mounted though, so I've left that on and am not sure if this will be enough. Thanks Aleksej and db48x! (and as a side-note, the config files don't exist on Ubuntu, after which I looked for UI :-)</li> <li>So I probably described the GRUB problem suboptimally. While I think that Fedora's approach, per db48x's comment, is superior to Ubuntu's, I can somewhat see the logic of keeping kernels around. What I really had/have a problem with, though, is why it doesn't update the default boot index if it adds new items. This is not rocket science. It is also nothing to do with backwards compatibility or "playing it safe" - not updating it simply means it boots the <em>wrong thing</em>. I've fixed it manually (again...). I found there is also an "updatedefaultentry" config var in menu.lst that by default seems to be set to false. I've set it to true in the hopes that it will save me next time around, but I'm wondering why it is set to false to begin with. If there is a reason, it most likely is that it doesn't work as I expect it to... Anyway. Thanks Legolas, Harm, ced and Arthur for the comments. And yes, I've removed the old kernels now...</li> <li>The shutdown problem is the only problem that remains fully unsolved. As said above, my menu.lst file for GRUB now reads: <code># defoptions=quiet splash apm=off acpi=force</code> Not sure if I need to run update-grub over that. Maybe I should. Right now it doesn't seem to have helped, though. ced, I'm not sure what you mean by "missing ACPI". Ubuntu's Services dialog claims both apmd and acpid are running. Windows and Debian did not have a problem using what I assume to be ACPI to shut the machine down without me touching the power button. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.</li> </ul> Everyone, thanks a lot!

In order of appearance:

  • Tracker didn’t appear in the Services administration app for me. I told its own “Indexing preferences” that I didn’t want it to do anything. Disks still kept spinning so I killed it, and apt-get removed it. Disks were still spinning, so I tried the evms removal solution John mentioned. That helped. A lot. Thanks!
  • After the aforementioned changes and adding “apm=off acpi=force” to my grub default boot options (per ced’s suggestion to “google things”) to see if that’d convince it to shut down, I rebooted. After that magically my partitions were automounted again. Yay! (As a note, I did think about checking /etc/fstab - nothing was out of the ordinary there as far as I could tell - but I probably should have mentioned that in the original post already)
  • I used to have kubuntu-desktop installed here as well, when I was testing a patch for Firefox that was supposed to make windows blink in taskbars consistently on Linux… but I removed kubuntu-desktop and had assumed it would have been smart enough to remove everything else as well. Guess not. Clearing anything KDE I could find from Synaptic helped. Now it just has the “Printing notification icon” there, and I guess I will probably manage to get that to go away later today. So thanks for that one, Patrick and ced.
  • I’ve simply refrained from putting in cd-roms for now, and told the “Removable Drives and Media” preferences that I don’t want it to automatically play cd’s, dvd’s or other things - I do want them mounted though, so I’ve left that on and am not sure if this will be enough. Thanks Aleksej and db48x! (and as a side-note, the config files don’t exist on Ubuntu, after which I looked for UI :-)
  • So I probably described the GRUB problem suboptimally. While I think that Fedora’s approach, per db48x’s comment, is superior to Ubuntu’s, I can somewhat see the logic of keeping kernels around. What I really had/have a problem with, though, is why it doesn’t update the default boot index if it adds new items. This is not rocket science. It is also nothing to do with backwards compatibility or “playing it safe” - not updating it simply means it boots the wrong thing. I’ve fixed it manually (again…). I found there is also an “updatedefaultentry” config var in menu.lst that by default seems to be set to false. I’ve set it to true in the hopes that it will save me next time around, but I’m wondering why it is set to false to begin with. If there is a reason, it most likely is that it doesn’t work as I expect it to… Anyway. Thanks Legolas, Harm, ced and Arthur for the comments. And yes, I’ve removed the old kernels now…
  • The shutdown problem is the only problem that remains fully unsolved. As said above, my menu.lst file for GRUB now reads:
    # defoptions=quiet splash apm=off acpi=force
    Not sure if I need to run update-grub over that. Maybe I should. Right now it doesn’t seem to have helped, though. ced, I’m not sure what you mean by “missing ACPI”. Ubuntu’s Services dialog claims both apmd and acpid are running. Windows and Debian did not have a problem using what I assume to be ACPI to shut the machine down without me touching the power button. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
]]> By: Aleksej http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13730 Aleksej Wed, 31 Oct 2007 09:09:38 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13730 The drive is probably taking the disc back because of auto‐mounting. Here, it is done by autofs, and happens, IIRC, when something is quering the mount point -- like a file manager with / open, if is disc is mounted to /cdrom. I configured that manually, and on Debian, so don’t know how it is on Ubuntu; here a part of the configuration is in /etc/auto.misc, referenced from /etc/auto.default. Ubuntu (and Debian, had I used some default configuration during install…) is ought to have a GUI for that, dunno what is the right way to correct it. The drive is probably taking the disc back because of auto‐mounting. Here, it is done by autofs, and happens, IIRC, when something is quering the mount point — like a file manager with / open, if is disc is mounted to /cdrom.

I configured that manually, and on Debian, so don’t know how it is on Ubuntu; here a part of the configuration is in /etc/auto.misc, referenced from /etc/auto.default. Ubuntu (and Debian, had I used some default configuration during install…) is ought to have a GUI for that, dunno what is the right way to correct it.

]]> By: Arthur http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13729 Arthur Wed, 31 Oct 2007 08:57:32 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13729 The Grub thing isn't Grub at all. Ubuntu has the annoying habit to keep *all* kernel versions installed. You've got to remove the old ones with the package manager of your choice. The grub menu then will get recreated accordingly. This will free quite a bit of space as well and is the source of much pain for those of us with a rather small boot partition (which I admit usually simply isn't necessary anymore, but I haven't completely re-setup my desktop computer for years, only upgraded). The Grub thing isn’t Grub at all. Ubuntu has the annoying habit to keep *all* kernel versions installed. You’ve got to remove the old ones with the package manager of your choice. The grub menu then will get recreated accordingly. This will free quite a bit of space as well and is the source of much pain for those of us with a rather small boot partition (which I admit usually simply isn’t necessary anymore, but I haven’t completely re-setup my desktop computer for years, only upgraded).

]]> By: ced http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13721 ced Wed, 31 Oct 2007 04:55:46 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13721 1. most likely tracker indexing your hard disk. Tracker is new in Gusty, so after an upgrade, it naturally has to build its index. You can modify the indexing settings to reduce the load and remove it if you don't want it. 2. check your fstab for any obvious problem. My guess would some specific setup done for fiesty that turns out to be incompatible (as in it-works-fine-for-me-here). 3. That's because of kde packages installed on your system. Granted, it's an error from ubuntu to show them that way. 5. Other kernels shows up simply because you have other kernels installed on your machine. I fail to see a problem here, it actually makes a whole more sense this way. Imagine you compile your own kernel, test it and realize you set wrong kernel options that leads to the system not being able to mount the root partition. If it wasn't for grub to list your old kernel(s), you'll be screwed. Remove old kernels if you don't need them anymore. 6. You're most likely missing ACPI. I've seen a few similar bugs with buggy BIOS on recent kernels. Other reason could be a module not unloading. All you problems can be quickly fixed with a bit a googling. give it a go. 1. most likely tracker indexing your hard disk. Tracker is new in Gusty, so after an upgrade, it naturally has to build its index. You can modify the indexing settings to reduce the load and remove it if you don’t want it.
2. check your fstab for any obvious problem. My guess would some specific setup done for fiesty that turns out to be incompatible (as in it-works-fine-for-me-here).
3. That’s because of kde packages installed on your system. Granted, it’s an error from ubuntu to show them that way.
5. Other kernels shows up simply because you have other kernels installed on your machine. I fail to see a problem here, it actually makes a whole more sense this way. Imagine you compile your own kernel, test it and realize you set wrong kernel options that leads to the system not being able to mount the root partition. If it wasn’t for grub to list your old kernel(s), you’ll be screwed. Remove old kernels if you don’t need them anymore.
6. You’re most likely missing ACPI. I’ve seen a few similar bugs with buggy BIOS on recent kernels. Other reason could be a module not unloading.

All you problems can be quickly fixed with a bit a googling. give it a go.

]]> By: Heikki Toivonen http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13712 Heikki Toivonen Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:05:35 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13712 Disk activity is probably caused by Trackerd. I turned it off: Systems > Administration > Services. I have also strange experiences with mount. After install I got all partitions mounted automatically. To make them go away I ended up hand editing /etc/fstab. I also don't seem to be able to remount as normal user. If you have problems with NTFS partitions, you might want to try installing ntfsprogs. I also uninstall old kernels I don't care about, so grub list is short. Disk activity is probably caused by Trackerd. I turned it off: Systems > Administration > Services.

I have also strange experiences with mount. After install I got all partitions mounted automatically. To make them go away I ended up hand editing /etc/fstab. I also don’t seem to be able to remount as normal user. If you have problems with NTFS partitions, you might want to try installing ntfsprogs.

I also uninstall old kernels I don’t care about, so grub list is short.

]]> By: db48x http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13711 db48x Tue, 30 Oct 2007 23:06:52 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13711 There's always Fedora. At least it only keeps 2 copies of the kernel around (the current one, which you know works, and the new one.) As for your cdrom problem I've never seen a drive behave like that. That would drive me crazy too. Maybe try using 'eject' at a shell, and see what happens. There’s always Fedora. At least it only keeps 2 copies of the kernel around (the current one, which you know works, and the new one.) As for your cdrom problem I’ve never seen a drive behave like that. That would drive me crazy too. Maybe try using ‘eject’ at a shell, and see what happens.

]]> By: Jon Smirl http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13710 Jon Smirl Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:19:05 +0000 http://www.gijsk.com/blog/2007/10/ubuntu-gutsy-complaints/#comment-13710 Your disk is grinding because there is a new file indexer. It is reading every file on your disk to create the index. You can turn it off in the system menus, I removed it. The indexer makes finding a file on your disk by searching for a string inside it about 10,000 times faster than grep. I just remember where I left things. Look in /etc/fstab and see if there is something obvious in there preventing the partitions from mounting. I am able to mount similar partitions without problem. Your disk is grinding because there is a new file indexer. It is reading every file on your disk to create the index. You can turn it off in the system menus, I removed it. The indexer makes finding a file on your disk by searching for a string inside it about 10,000 times faster than grep. I just remember where I left things.

Look in /etc/fstab and see if there is something obvious in there preventing the partitions from mounting. I am able to mount similar partitions without problem.

]]>