Announcement

**barbolani** · Jun 21, 2011, 12:55 PM

Re: Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Update: it seems that if you have a NVidia card, you cannot attempt to change the desktop decoration with effects enabled: it crashes the whole machine.

And the solution for the virtualbox-ose-dkms package only "works" as long as you're ready to tolerate getting an error each time you run apt-get, because the package manager retries the failed install each time you run it. Maybe there is a way of making apt-get ignore the error.

All this plus the Konsole crash mean for me going back to 2007: turn off desktop effects.

I wish I had not upgraded. At least I would still be in 2010.

**GreyGeek** · Jun 21, 2011, 01:08 PM

Re: Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Originally posted by barbolani

.....
So far it has been mostly a smooth sailing. But the latest upgrade has left me with a bitter feeling. After all these years, we still get upgrades with issues, both know and unknown. This has to improve.
...

Hey, that's an easy fix. All you have to do is find me a couple dozen perfect people who can learn how to program without creating errors, and convince NVidia to release the data on their chips so that those perfect coders don't have to reverse engineer them, and you'll have Kubuntu spot on perfect in no time.

Until that time, you'll have to put up with warts like me ... in 40 years of programming I rarely created a perfect program, unless it was a one liner.

Back to the topic: it has been a long time since I visited this forum, which is a good sign of the degree of stability and lack of issues with KUbuntu. But this afternoon, after upgrading to Natty, I had to log in again. Incidentally, I did not found the solutions I was looking for, so I thought I better post them here.

It's still a good sign. There a LOTS of people who have installed and run Natty "out of the box" without a problem. That's how Kubuntu has run for me from 9.10 up to Natty. Oneiric is giving me some problems, but it not even in Beta yet, so I expect that. And, if you've spent a lot of time on this forum you'll know that sometimes a distro or series of distros will work perfectly on a particular box, but the next release doesn't, because a video or wireless driver has gone legacy and not longer installs "out of the box". There is only so much room on a CD and when new drivers get added old ones usually get put into archives.

- Konsole crashes when resizing with NVidia driver: change the properties of the Konsole icon to use the --notransparency argument.
- Virtualbox-ose-dkms driver not installing: install the package, and you'll see the error and the end of apt-get install. Then issue the command: sudo dkms install -m virtualbox-ose-dkms -v 4.0.4

Thanks for wanting to tell folks about the problems you had and how you over came them. I'm sure there are folks running a box and or chips similar to yours that will benefit from your post, and they'll probably jump in here, to help or sympathize.

Shame on you, Canonical, for releasing an update that crashes one of the basic components (Konsole) of the distro when half of the users (NVidia) resize a window. Shame on you NVidia for not releasing a patch for this quickly.

Shame on you, Oracle and Canonical, for not fixing what is apparently a trivial bug in one of the most popular (VirtualBox) free virtualization packages around.

So yeah, grub is now blue and the color theme is great. But it's sad, and makes me think of switching to Fedora or -heaven forbids- Suse.

Shame on you for ASSUMING that what gives you a problem will give everyone else the same problem. And, after you've made your first Billion and started your own FOSS distro, pitching in $10M or more per year, you can start criticizing Canonical and the folks who work for it and the people who volunteer to help write code, document, and $upport it.

Both Fedora and openSUSE are fine distros, if you like RPM as a packaging system. But, if you think they put out spotless distros you'll have to explain why they have help forums and bug reporting websites. Sometimes, because of a kernel upgrade or a library change a kernel or package will break all the distros. Sometimes this happens just before a release date. Put then in? Leave them out? Doesn't matter which path is taken, someone will always complain.

Thanks for dropping by!

**barbolani** · Jun 21, 2011, 04:22 PM

Re: Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Perhaps I got too carried away and did not make my point clear enough. Let me start with the parts where I think you're plain wrong.

Shame on you for ASSUMING that what gives you a problem will give everyone else the same problem. And, after you've made your first Billion and started your own FOSS distro, pitching in $10M or more per year, you can start criticizing Canonical and the folks who work for it and the people who volunteer to help write code, document, and $upport it.

I went to Launchpad and check this bug: it is located in position 14 in the ranking by affected people. Hardly assuming that the problem is just mine. Yes, there are surely other system-destroying bugs much more important and urgent to solve. But I was not complaining about something that happens only to me. As for the remaining of your paragraph, I'm sure that you agree that having 1 billion in the bank does not suppress your ability to make wrong decisions, and also I assume that you are merely defending Canonical, not opposing my opinion with the -objectively notable and laudable- merits of the whole Ubuntu ecosystem. Inasmuch as I respect their work, we should not confuse their right to do whatever they want with whether what they do is right or not from different points of view. Sorry, getting too profound here.

I'm all for Linux in general and have found (K)Ubuntu an excellent distro for many years, in fact a few weeks ago I retired a "home" P2P server that was running 6.06. I, like Canonical, share the "dream" of getting (K)Ubuntu, or other similar distro targeted at end users, in the hands of 200 million users. And, while difficult to achieve, I'm willing to contribute some of my time and effort to reach that goal. That's why I wanted to make a point, otherwise I'd stay clear of this distro and install something else.

One can contribute with ideas, as well as with time, money or effort. While I've not contributed to Ubuntu specifically, I've contributed to other OSS projects, some of them packaged with Ubuntu. Granted, I've probably not given back what I've received from free (including from the nice people in this forum), and I don't have a billion of spare change to create the perfect distro, but I have some experience.

And is from that experience that I'm saying that I cannot understand why Canonical can release a product that has major known flaws. It goes beyond the rational, it's not only a matter of not understanding the logic, it is also a feeling of looking at an old friend that is starting to let you down.

Hey, that's an easy fix. All you have to do is find me a couple dozen perfect people who can learn how to program without creating errors, and convince NVidia to release the data on their chips so that those perfect coders don't have to reverse engineer them, and you'll have Kubuntu spot on perfect in no time.

Until that time, you'll have to put up with warts like me ... in 40 years of programming I rarely created a perfect program, unless it was a one liner.

You and I know that even with perfect specs and perfect programmers, there will be always errors. That's why I agree with you that you cannot realistically expect to ship a bug free product. Ever. Even the Shuttle software had bugs (yes, not that many, but bugs anyway)

And my point is not about Natty not being perfect. My point is about a growing attitude in Canonical. Let me take the Konsole crash as an example (inasmuch as I like it VBox is a minority product) When faced with such a bug report, Canonical could have taken a few different courses of action. I can think of a few right now.

Wait for NVidia to declare the fixed driver "sane" for shipping. Delay release of Natty until that happened. Blame NVidia for that
Downgrade X and NVidia driver versions and ship. Blame NVidia for not providing a stable driver that supports their latest cards as well as the older ones. Explain that you're releasing for the existing machine base, not for the hot products of today and that they can always upgrade later those packages.
Ship (K)Ubuntu with desktop effects disabled by default, postpone Unity for the next release. Blame NVidia for that
Ship (K)Ubuntu with a big warning window in the installer before enabling desktop effects stating that, if you're the unfortunate owner of a NVidia card, your system can crash if you try to resize certain application windows under Unity or do such advanced operations as, for example, change the appearance of your windows in KDE. Blame NVidia for that.
Ship (K)Ubuntu with noveau driver by default, and make user go to jockey to enable NVidia proprietary. Use jockey to blame in advance NVidia for any problems that may happen.
...
...
Ship (K)Ubuntu with a know bug that can cold crash computers of maybe 20% of your potential user base (completely baseless estimate but maybe realistic) . Imagine if Ubuntu was in the hands of 200 million people, that would mean 40 million users looking at a frozen screen after they tried to change window appearance

Now, each of these decisions have different impacts, and an interesting debate could spawn out of considering each one of them. But do you honestly believe that the best decision in terms of Canonical's goal of reaching 200 million people was the last one? I don't think so. I see Canonical sliding from their legacy of providing a simple and working distro to the masses to the rush to artificially keep a release schedule stuffed with as many new and/or upgraded packages as possible, with little concern about how well they run (see Unity reviews) and the quality of the user experience. This is not the way of reaching 200 million users with a limited marketing budget.

It's a bit like those bank managers that had to reach some goals to get their year end bonuses. They reached the targets and pocketed the bonus, destroying the bank in the process. This is what makes me sad. Perhaps Canonical is getting perfect at the six month release cycle, but at the cost of marginalizing non LTS releases to the category of "upgrades for a selected minority". That would slow the adoption rate of Ubuntu and relegate it to the same ranks as the competition (Fedora, Suse)

And finally, I feel that this attitude devalues the work that everyone in Canonical and all the surrounding ecosystem (including you) are doing to promote what is, still today even with all its bugs, a fine piece of software.

**GreyGeek** · Jun 21, 2011, 05:16 PM

Re: Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Originally posted by barbolani

Perhaps I got too carried away and did not make my point clear enough.

Obviously.

...But I was not complaining about something that happens only to me....

While "it" may happen to others besides you that does not mean that "it" happens to everyone. I've seen many "bug" reports that were highly selective in who they affected. Very few bugs affect everyone.

...
That's why I wanted to make a point, ..

With whom, and for what purpose? IF you have filed or added to a bug report on Launchpad then you've done all that is expected. What happens with the bug depends on a LOT of things that are not in the control of anyone on this forum. So posting rants like yours here is like peeing in the corner of our living room. It just stinks up the place and doesn't contribute anything useful because developers don't have time to peruse this or other forums to dissect rants looking for valid data about bugs.

....
I'm saying that I cannot understand why Canonical can release a product that has major known flaws
....

What you can or cannot understand is important to how YOU perceive FOSS and Canonical's development paradigm, but is in no wise indicative of some putative "major known" flaws. A bug posted on Launch pad isn't proof of anything until it has been verified and triaged. And, while you may consider it important and major, those who actually do the work of fixing bugs will in all likelihood have different priorities. Like you, they have only 24 hours in their day and seven days in their week. They also have lives to live, families, paying jobs and a need for rest and recreation as well.

You and I know that even with perfect specs and perfect programmers, there will be always errors. That's why I agree with you that you cannot realistically expect to ship a bug free product. Ever. Even the Shuttle software had bugs (yes, not that many, but bugs anyway)

Glad to read that you understand that.

....
My point is about a growing attitude in Canonical.
...

You have no clue and even less proof about a "growing attitude at Canonical. What did you use for a metric to make such a statement?

Now, each of these decisions have different impacts, and an interesting debate could spawn out of considering each one of them. But do you honestly believe that the best decision in terms of Canonical's goal of reaching 200 million people was the last one? I don't think so. I see Canonical sliding from their legacy of providing a simple and working distro to the masses to the rush to artificially keep a release schedule stuffed with as many new and/or upgraded packages as possible, with little concern about how well they run (see Unity reviews) and the quality of the user experience. This is not the way of reaching 200 million users with a limited marketing budget.

You're not a programmer and I can safely wager you are not a prophet, either. And when giving your list of priorities, don't you think you should post Canonical's list so that we can compare them? I would imagine that after you post that list someone will jump on board and criticize it for not "put rant here".

Now, was there some specific problem that you need help with?

**barbolani** · Jun 22, 2011, 01:50 AM

Re: Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Sorry, but you're wrong on almost all counts. You talk about metrics without showing your own. You say that I'm not a programmer, when I am. You say that it does not happen to everyone, yet the bug was posted on April, 4th, triaged and classified as of "High" importance on Launchpad. Worse yet, the fix is still on the NVidia pipeline. You say that I have no proof of a growing attitude at Canonical, do you want me to point to the not-exactly-raving reviews of Natty (esp. with Unity), the Launchpad list of show stopper bugs or what?

You say that I cannot pretend influence the priorities from Canonical for fixing bugs, which is true, but seems hat you did not understood my point, which was that there were at least five alternatives, some of them not needing the bug fixed. The choice among those options made by Canonical should reflect their priorities, right?

And finally...

It just stinks up the place and doesn't contribute anything useful because developers don't have time to peruse this or other forums to dissect rants looking for valid data about bug

I did not write this for developers, I did for end users thinking to install or upgrade Natty. While my post has certainly some rant components, I don't think it is a complete waste of bytes. Would it be useful for users before deciding to install or upgrade to know that if they have certain brand of video card or use a popular virtualization package they are going to run into issues?

The only one where you're right is that this is not the place to post rants, for which I apology. Obviously, this is not the place to discuss these matters and I'm stopping here.

**GreyGeek** · Jun 22, 2011, 10:31 AM

Re: Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Originally posted by barbolani

Sorry, but you're wrong on almost all counts. You talk about metrics without showing your own. You say that I'm not a programmer, when I am.

That you are, my apologies. I see you've worked on yuvfps, among others. Since you are the programmer it gives one cause to wonder if your projects were your own, or if you had experience working with a team on a complex project. You seem to show very little knowledge of the development cycle, schedules, priorities lists, triage and bog fixing in a complex project environment. See below

You say that it does not happen to everyone, yet the bug was posted on April, 4th, triaged and classified as of "High" importance on Launchpad. Worse yet, the fix is still on the NVidia pipeline. You say that I have no proof of a growing attitude at Canonical, do you want me to point to the not-exactly-raving reviews of Natty (esp. with Unity), the Launchpad list of show stopper bugs or what?

You make an implied claim that because a bug was posted three months ago, triaged, classified "High" and the "fix" is still in the NVidia pipeline, it "proves" that Canonical has an attitude or doesn't care. And your backup support is other rants like yours? Launchpad doesn't track NVidia's "pipeline", it is a bugzilla for Ubuntu and its daughter products. You do understand about video chipsets, as this post of yours verifies. However, just because a bug, which may not (and probably doesn't) affect everyone, has been in Launchpad for 3 months doesn't mean that Canonical doesn't care. As a programmer you should know that. But, you should also understand that because of limitations of resources and personnel, they would assign priorities to projects, bugs and items on wish lists. One of the metrics used to rank priorities is the number of people reporting a bug, or checking an item on a wish list. Contrary to your assertions, it could be that very few people are reporting the bug that has you so upset.

When I was running Mandriva 2009 PWD (I noticed that you used Mandriva in 2003) my Intel Mobil 4 Series video chip driver, i815, was giving poor performance. It wouldn't do 3D or get decent acceleration. Stellarium looked terrible. Many people whose PC used that video chip reported excellent results, which shows you that even the same chip is implemented in different ways by various OEMs, which explained why some people using Kubuntu and the Series 4 chipset had good video results but I and others did not. I posted a bug to Xorg and began working with them. That was in September of 2008. I worked with them testing patches and reporting results, sending screen captures, etc... In February, four months later, they found a fix. I waited for it to appear in the Mandriva repositories. Meanwhile, I read about Kubuntu running KDE 4.2.2, which Mandriva said it wasn't going to implement until later than summer or fall. I booted a Jaunty LiveCD to look at KDE 4.2.2 and was stunned to see beautiful 3D with excellent acceleration! Kubuntu automatically detected my chip and used the i915 driver. Mandriva didn't use the i915 driver. The patched i815 driver reached Mandriva later that spring, about 6 or 7 months later. It's not that Mandriva or Xorg didn't care, or had an attitude, they just have limited resources and personnel.

You say that I cannot pretend influence the priorities from Canonical for fixing bugs, which is true, but seems hat you did not understood my point, which was that there were at least five alternatives, some of them not needing the bug fixed. The choice among those options made by Canonical should reflect their priorities, right?

There are five alternatives AS YOU SEE THEM. But, it is not your money, your resources, your corporation or your personnel, and you do not know what Shuttleworth's goals are.

.......
I did not write this for developers, I did for end users thinking to install or upgrade Natty. While my post has certainly some rant components, I don't think it is a complete waste of bytes. Would it be useful for users before deciding to install or upgrade to know that if they have certain brand of video card or use a popular virtualization package they are going to run into issues?
...

That much is obvious. But, your post was a total rant which appeared to have one purpose only: to dissuade people from trying Natty specifically, and Kubuntu in general. What amazes me is that your rant followed this posting, after more than a six month absence from this forum, in which you state:

At least the crash when resizing is confirmed at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...rs/+bug/760632 . There is a bug in the NVidia proprietary driver that makes konsole crash when you resize the window.

From the same place I found a temporary fix that is not that bad. Invoking konsole with the --notransparency command line argument, at least for me, avoids crashes when resizing the window.

Shame on you, NVidia, for letting the update with the fix sleep for more than five weeks.

And, your experience upgrading two servers at the same time, one which went perfectly and one which required some manual intervention, demonstrates that not everyone or every machine is affected by any particular bug, or maybe no bug at all.

Alfonso, you write English like it was your 1st language! Except for a brief 6 month absence from this forum you spent two years here helping folks out because you wanted to "give something back". That's why I am here as well. A person with your experience (still with CTE?) has a lot to offer besides a momentary outburst. Fedora and openSUSE are excellent distros, if you like RPM based distros, but you can still "give back" here, and make positive contributions.

Announcement

Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Natty impressions - Virtualbox-ose-dkms and Konsole resizing

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment

Comment