screen frequently freezes [and other bugs]

[kaefert]

Hi there!

I'm new to KDE (have been using gnome2 and cinnamon for the last decade)

I've installed Kubuntu 14.04 beta2 on my Asus Zenbook UX32VD and have several issues.
My most severe one is:

1.) The screen frequently freezes. Nothing gets updated. Though by switching to any tty (strg+alt+F3 for example) and back to the GUI (strg-alt+F7) then everything continues to work. also every action that I performed after the screen froze has been performed. (for example if I pressed alt+tab after the screen froze then I will have another window on top of the screen then before the screen froze).

2.) The issue of libreoffice not starting when called through the start menu could be worked around by the suggestion of this other thread https://www.kubuntuforums.net/showth...eOffice-update
apt-get remove libreoffice-kde

3.) The "KDE IM Contacts" application has incredibly awful performance. When I restore it from the taskbar it shows an empty white area where the contacts should be for about 5 seconds before showing any contacts. Also on other occations it sometimes freezes and doesn't do anything (but maxing out one of my cpu cores) for a few seconds. Also it seems much less powerful then Pidgin which I used previously on my cinnamon desktops, especially when it comes to logging. And no ICQ support.

4.) Can't assign keyboard+mouse combinations to keyboard shortcuts. awful. (I want my mousewheel-desktop-zoom that I've so gotten used to) https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=163121

5.) When setting up a whole-disk-encryption during the setup-process, the key for this is aked from the user before he is asked for the correct keyboard layout, therefore keys that differ from the US-qwerty layout on the users keyboard will falsify the disk-encryption key.

6.) Multi-Montior configuration works as long as you're satisfied with the default. But If one wants to configure it using the GUI and starts moving around the screens, for example to put them above each other the kde-session will crash (I've filed a bug for this one here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...e/+bug/1306890 )


.. I'm gonna continue the list when I get around to it.

[GreyGeek]

The screen freeze issue is probably the baloo_file_indexer hogging the CPU cycles. One work-a-round is to go to Systemsettings --> Desktop Search and add your home directory to the excluded directories list. That appears to have solved my screen freeze problem.

[kaefert]

The screen freeze issue is probably the baloo_file_indexer hogging the CPU cycles. One work-a-round is to go to Systemsettings --> Desktop Search and add your home directory to the excluded directories list. That appears to have solved my screen freeze problem.

I don't think that my screen freeze is related to that issue. a running dstat process will not show any increase in cpu usage, and the freeze will not go away by itself. it will only resolve itself when I switch to a tty console and back (as described above) I guess maybe it could be related to the nvidia driver.

[GreyGeek]

Ah, then in that case perhaps your problem is related to the xorg issue where the "acceleration method" was switched to SNA from UXA.

You can create /etc/X11/xorg.conf (or add to it if it exists) with the following instructions:

Section "Device"
   Identifier  "Intel Graphics"
   Driver      "intel"
   Option      "AccelMethod"  "uxa"
EndSection

This solved my tearing, stuttering and freezing, which was happening before the baloo_file_indexer problem appeared.

[kaefert]

http://pastebin.com/bpXbuGan
my existing intel device has
Driver "modesetting"

should I replace this section with the one you provided, or keep the existing one and add a second intel device section?

[GreyGeek]

Just add the snippet I posted to your xorg.conf file after the existing Intel device section.
http://www.x.org/archive/X11R7.5/doc...rg.conf.5.html

Device Section

The config file may have multiple Device sections. There must be at least one, for the video card being used. Device sections have the following format:

Section "Device"
Identifier "name"
Driver "driver"
entries
...
EndSection

The Identifier and Driver entries are required in all Device sections. All other entries are optional.

[kaefert]

sorry for the long pause, didn't have time to continue testing before now.
so adding that extra section to my xorg.conf after my other intel section didn't stop my screen freezes. (its really only the screen that freezes, everything else continues running and also any action I perform blind will be performed just like it where done if the screen didn't freeze)
And it's not just a short stuttering or anything, it will stay frozen forever, until I either hardware-reboot or switch to A tty (strg+alt+F2) and back.

[schnelle]

Intel driver should be fixed with latest xserver update (it has a workaround for bug in mesa). Mine ivy bridge graphics works fine now (I had to reset kwin to default settings and reboot).

[kaefert]

how do you reset kwin to default settings?

[kubicle]

how do you reset kwin to default settings?

remove or rename ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc (that is /home/<username>/.kde/share/config/kwinrc) ,preferably when kde is not running:

1. logout
2. switch to text terminal (Ctrl+Alt+F6)
3. Log in (your password will not be echoed)
4. run "mv ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc ~/.kde/share/config/kwinrc.bak"
5. logout ("exit")
6. switch back to GUI (usually Ctrl+Alt+F7, but can be F8+ in some cases)
7. log in

[kaefert]

My Kubuntu Installation is up-to-date and I did reset my kwinrc file from a tty console and rebooted a few hours ago. I've already experienced two of the desktop freezes that I've described above since then.
update: just now the third one.