Kubuntu frozen and died

[tweev]

This is annoying. I was working away and my computer just froze!

With all the trouble I have had with the wireless I think I'm just going to do a fresh install. This is a REALLY annoying time suck I don't need right now. >

Anyway, I have a Windows 7 / KDE dual boot. What is the easiest way to do a fresh install?

I'm currently backing up the computer (through non-GUI) so I should be able to throw all my files back soon enough.

Thanks for your help!

[oshunluvr]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Not really sure what you mean by the "easiest" way - but once you've made your backups, the installer will allow you to re-format the install partition.

You should consider creating a separate /home partition so the next time you do an install you won't need to erase your home directory.

Personally, I don't recommend re-installing every time you have a problem. More often than not, problems related to your install will return and the act of re-installing wipes out any chance of figuring out what went wrong. Better to spend some time trouble-shooting and solving problems - then they don't return (or at least less likely to).

If your issue is hardware caused, re-installing is even less likely to help.

[tweev]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

I know what you mean I just have some deadlines looming and I don't really have the time to trouble shoot this.

Great idea on the home directory partition. Clever.

Thanks for the help.

[oshunluvr]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

I understand - hopefully your issue was an anomaly and won't return.

[tweev]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Yeah, I think I'm going to go back to 10, I really liked 11 but the wireless issues & video driver problems were a bit of a distraction. Too bad, I really liked 11.

Could you give me some advice on how much space I should reserve for the OS partition? I was thinking 30 gigs would be plenty.

[tweev]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Nevermind, I just found this great article. Looks like 10G will be plenty

http://www.linuxbsdos.com/2011/05/12...kubuntu-11-04/

Thanks for the advice on the /home partition, I hadn't considered that. I think I'm going to give 11 another chance. If I run into issues again, I'll throw on 10. Thanks!

[oshunluvr]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Usually, 8GB is enough unless you install a ton of stuff. I usually reserve 12GB but rarely go over 7.

One of the beauties of linux is how easily it handles multiple drives/partitions The ease of "attaching" partitions and drives together really shines over winblows., a separate /home being a great example of this.

Don't know what your hard drive space is, but I usually reserve room for two or three installs so I can try out other distros or keep a backup copy of my current main install along side itself.

If you can stay at 10GB, that's only 30GB for 3 OS installs, then whatever is left over for /home.

[DoYouKubuntu]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Personally, I don't recommend re-installing every time you have a problem. More often than not, problems related to your install will return and the act of re-installing wipes out any chance of figuring out what went wrong. Better to spend some time trouble-shooting and solving problems - then they don't return (or at least less likely to).

If your issue is hardware caused, re-installing is even less likely to help.

I usually agree with oshunluvr, and I also usually agree that re-installing Linux isn't the answer when one's having problems. Since you're a windows user, you're probably used to re-installing the OS every few months to fix the plethora of problems (viruses, spyware, adware, bloatware, slowness, crashes, etc.) that go along with using M$. But Linux isn't like that.

However, after my own recent issues--doing a clean install of 11.04 on a new laptop, freshly wiped of windoze, only to have virtually NOTHING work, then doing a clean install of 10.10 and still having problems, and then going back to 11.04 before finally getting a [nicely!] working laptop--my feelings have changed a bit. I think that--sometimes--a re-install may be called for. But what I'd caution against is getting into the mindset of re-installing every time something goes awry. I have Linux boxes that have not had their OSes touched in years, and they're still cranking away--as *nix is supposed to do.

I'd also like to second what oshunluvr said about creating a separate /home partition. When you're installing Linux you can--and should--tweak its disk usage manually (you're given that choice during the install process). By creating separate /, /home and swap partitions you're making the best use of your disk and the OS, plus you save yourself the hassle of having to start from scratch as far as users go. If you upgrade, or re-install, simply choose NOT to format your /home partition and you won't lose anything that's on it. In addition to the above, I always also create a separate /data partition as a common storage area and, like /home, I don't format it when I upgrade the OS.

[tweev]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Thanks guys. I've been using KDE for about 4 years. It's just been a while since I've done this. I found some good tutorials online and I have 11.04 reinstalled, my dropbox syncing, and just about to move over my backups. I took your advice and have a 15G for the OS (I have a 500G hardrive), and the remainder for windows and my stuff in the /home partitions. Pretty sweet.

Unfortunately (you knew that was coming ) I'm still having wireless issues with 11.04. This weird freeze was just the straw, I was really hoping the wireless would be fixed and working out of the box with the 11.04 updates. Odd behaviour. I started a thread a month or so back to try to fix it and i'll have to revisit it. I'd really like to get this fixed so I don't have to be on linux 1/2 time and windows 1/2 time, it's annoying.

Thanks again!

[The Liquidator]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

A couple of points here:

When Linux "freezes" it only appears that this is the case. Usually things are still chugging away in the background and it is X that is frozen. In that case your best way is to do a soft reboot by holding down the alt and sysrq keys whilst slowly typing reisub.

That would possibly tie in with your reference to video driver issues. What graphics card do you have? Also, what wireless problems are you having? Knowing what wireless chip you have may help too, and please let us know whether you are using the stock network-manager or Wicd.

[tweev]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

A couple of points here:

When Linux "freezes" it only appears that this is the case. Usually things are still chugging away in the background and it is X that is frozen. In that case your best way is to do a soft reboot by holding down the alt and sysrq keys whilst slowly typing reisub.

That would possibly tie in with your reference to video driver issues. What graphics card do you have? Also, what wireless problems are you having? Knowing what wireless chip you have may help too, and please let us know whether you are using the stock network-manager or Wicd.

That's a very good point and in hindsight I think you are correct. I was able to log into terminal fine so obviously the OS was still working, it was just X that was frozen. Drat, I guess I did the reinstall for nothing. It is nice to have a seperate /home directory (although I know I could have done that without the fresh install).

Part of my motivation to fresh install was I was hoping my wireless issues would go away. I had assumed my problems were with something I had done in the past causing a conflict but even with this fresh install I am having problems.

My network issues are in this thread, same as before, any help would be greatly appreciate. I really dislike jumping back and forth from linux to windows. I'd rather just stay in the former. Thanks!

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...4274#msg274274

[The Liquidator]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

What graphics card are you using, or now you've reinstalled has the freezing stopped?

[tweev]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

Seems the freezing issue is gone, I think the X11 point was correct and the reinstall was just a big time suck. As I said, i was hoping the reinstall would correct the wireless issues. I found another thread earlier that tracked back the freezing problem to the wireless card. Seems like my two problems were linked. Anyway, odd that installing the Broadcom driver and then disabling it caused the Wifi to die again. Weird stuff.

As for video: I have a GeForce 310M

I put some time when I first did the install to get the shiny graphics going but gave up after a few hours. X11 would keep on crashing out. I gave up and just went with the onboard graphics card (what a waste of money!)

I had my computer working with my external monitor for work (Dell 2208 WFPt) prior to the fresh install, unfortunately I did that six months ago and took very poor (i.e non-existent) notes on how I fixed it. BTW I have a Vostro 3400.

Thanks for the help.

[tweev]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

OUCH. Sorry, I'm kind of jumping two threads right now.

Anyway,


Tried this and no luck (to correct a wireless issues):

http://kubuntuforums.net/forums/inde...3994#msg203994
tweev


Then I rebooted and:

Hmmm... I tried reinstalling the broadcom driver and there was an error (couldn't find some file). Now when I try to boot up (even in safe mode) my computer hangs with the 'A' and 'down arrow' lights flashing......

Not sure what to do at this point besides going back to 10.04.

OUCH. Any ideas?

[leetuckert]

Re: Kubuntu frozen and died

I have had this same issue crop a couple times. It is infrequent. Both times the key board was unresponsive as evidenced by the fact that the caps lock key would not turn on the caps lock light. I was able in both cases to login to the notebook from another computer and issue a reboot command. The fact that I was able to login shows that the computer is not fried but that something happens so that the keyboard stops working. This is a new laptop so I don't think it is a hardware issue. Anyway, it might be helpful to you if you can get to your machine from another and reboot. I would much rather do that than do a hard boot. You will need to install the ssh server to do this.