Microsoft Kubuntu 95, BSOD Edition

[Tom_ZeCat]

I installed FileZilla from Muon Discover. To my dismay, its icon did not show up in the application launcher, even after reboot. I then edited the app launcher, putting FiileZilla in the Development category, which seems logical to me. It did not show up there either. I tried to move a few things around to places I thought made more sense, but no changes showed up. I then tried to add a test entry and that did not show up either. I have not forgotten to save anything.

One weird note: FileZilla installed with its executable file's permissions being set to root. I had to go in and take ownership. I was able to run it by clicking on the file, but the stupid thing's not in the launcher.

In general, I'm having terrible problems with this install of Kubuntu, far worse than my previous install. I've done a reinstall because a cleanup was needed. The hard drive was not partitioned in ways that made sense. I installed as a dual boot following partition recommendations that I found on a web site about a manual Kubuntu install.

Other problems, I keep having:
My HP Laserjet P1005 has quit working, and I haven't been able to get it working again, despite reinstalling HPLIP. Sometimes when I look at my list of printers, the printer is listed; other times, I get a red X and a statement that there's no printer there.
Sometimes LibreOffice Writer won't boot up. It complains that the default.ott file is corrupt. After a reboot, it usually works fine.
Sometimes VirtualBox will refuse to run Windows 7. Then I reboot Kubuntu and run VB and it runs fine.

I do notice when I boot up, just before the Grub menu offering the OSes, it says booting in insecure mode.

I wondered if this hard drive is failing, but tests have not shown any evidence of that. I'm about ready to format the hard drive and reinstall Kubuntu, this time with no dual boot. 97% of the time when I use Windows, it's under VirtualBox anyway. I hung onto the dual boot only for a few Windows-based DVD burning programs that I could not get to work under VB. Now I've got an external DVD drive that I can use on my other laptop, a netbook with Windows 7, and those programs run with that.

Am I having so many problems that I should just format and reinstall? I'm calling this install of Kubuntu, "Microsoft Kubuntu 95, BSOD Edition."

[ronw]

If you can easily get your data off to a safe spot, a clean install may be a lot faster than trying to track down strange 'doesn't work till I reboot' problems.

Given your description, I would start with a fresh /home directory and user account, too.

[claydoh]

A couple of notes

I installed FileZilla from Muon Discover. To my dismay, its icon did not show up in the application launcher, even after reboot. I then edited the app launcher, putting FiileZilla in the Development category, which seems logical to me. It did not show up there either. I tried to move a few things around to places I thought made more sense, but no changes showed up. I then tried to add a test entry and that did not show up either. I have not forgotten to save anything.

This is likely due to a file permissions error on your home directory, or at least some of the config files. Changes you make are not being saved to disk. A failing drive is one possibility here. Running gui programs with 'sudo' also can cause this, but with your overall set of symptoms, it is much less likely here.

One weird note: FileZilla installed with its executable file's permissions being set to root. I had to go in and take ownership. I was able to run it by clicking on the file, but the stupid thing's not in the launcher.

The file's permission was correct. While "root" has ownership, users do have exec privileges in the file, just not write privileges.

In general, I'm having terrible problems with this install of Kubuntu, far worse than my previous install. I've done a reinstall because a cleanup was needed. The hard drive was not partitioned in ways that made sense. I installed as a dual boot following partition recommendations that I found on a web site about a manual Kubuntu install.

Other problems, I keep having:
My HP Laserjet P1005 has quit working, and I haven't been able to get it working again, despite reinstalling HPLIP. Sometimes when I look at my list of printers, the printer is listed; other times, I get a red X and a statement that there's no printer there.
Sometimes LibreOffice Writer won't boot up. It complains that the default.ott file is corrupt. After a reboot, it usually works fine.
Sometimes VirtualBox will refuse to run Windows 7. Then I reboot Kubuntu and run VB and it runs fine.

I do notice when I boot up, just before the Grub menu offering the OSes, it says booting in insecure mode.

This is a bios/uefi/secure boot thing, not a Linux/grub issue. I am not an expert on the uefi/secure boot stuff, but I am guessing that 'insecure' is what is allowing a multi-boot system.

I wondered if this hard drive is failing, but tests have not shown any evidence of that. I'm about ready to format the hard drive and reinstall Kubuntu, this time with no dual boot. 97% of the time when I use Windows, it's under VirtualBox anyway. I hung onto the dual boot only for a few Windows-based DVD burning programs that I could not get to work under VB. Now I've got an external DVD drive that I can use on my other laptop, a netbook with Windows 7, and those programs run with that.

Am I having so many problems that I should just format and reinstall? I'm calling this install of Kubuntu, "Microsoft Kubuntu 95, BSOD Edition."

[Tom_ZeCat]

Thanks for the tips. There's one more thing that might support the possibility of a failing hard drive. Before this install, I had wiped the drive with Gparted Live. Then when I tried to install the Windows Home Premium from the system restore disks I made when I got the computer, it went, "Blech, won't work, you bonehead. You've meddled with our ingeniously set up hard drive, which was such a pinko commie thing to do that we're not reinstalling Win 7 Home Premium until you fix it back the way it was, you stupid butthead. Don't you know you have no right to partition the drive the way you want it? You think you own this computer or something? Now worship us and fix it back." It may not have been those exact words, but they were something to that effect. My solution was to instead use a Windows 7 Ultimate install disk, which would not have the drivers, but would run. So I found Lenovo's drivers page and downloaded them all. However, when I would try to install a driver, I would get a message to the effect of, "I see you want to install a driver that's specifically designed for this machine. Well, I don't feel like doing it. Flustered yet? Hee hee." I never could get the screen resolution right, but I moved on to installing Kubuntu, since that was way more important.

One thing about Lenovo: It's UEFI system is strange and attempts to prevent you from installing any OS other than the one that came with the machine. (What? Install whatever OS you want? Gasp!) Back when I had the original Windows Home 7 Premium on this PC and set up Kubuntu for the first time, I had a beast of a time getting the thing to dual boot. The thing would only boot to Windows 7 after Kubuntu was installed, and normal Grub commands did not work. Finally, I found a web page with specific instructions from a man who had been through the whole thing with the exact model. It was only after heavy commandline work that I was successful. This time around, however, the dual boot worked straight away, the main difference being it always starts with "booting in insecure mode."

So, my theories: 1. Dying hard drive. 2. Somehow Lenovo's squirrely architecture is wrecking havoc. In either case, will buying a new hard drive and starting from scratch solve this? To be honest I don't fully understand UEFI and how it's different from a BIOS. I thought a BIOS was entirely built into a computer's circuitry with no need to save anything to a hard drive. However, I heard that a UEFI does indeed save things to your hard drive. So how does that affect replacing the hard drive?

[SecretCode]

So, my theories: 1. Dying hard drive. 2. Somehow Lenovo's squirrely architecture is wrecking havoc. In either case, will buying a new hard drive and starting from scratch solve this? To be honest I don't fully understand UEFI and how it's different from a BIOS. I thought a BIOS was entirely built into a computer's circuitry with no need to save anything to a hard drive. However, I heard that a UEFI does indeed save things to your hard drive. So how does that affect replacing the hard drive?

If it's a dying hard drive, drive testing should demonstrate it. E.g. Drive Utility (or whatever it's called) from the Kubuntu live disc (I think it's included).
I don't think it is. But it's possible.

Meanwhile ... BIOS and UEFI. They are both baked into firmware. And the firmware will include options for controlling the on-board clock and so on which are not really anything to do with booting, and will include a boot manager. Which isn't a boot loader - they are usually provided by the operating system(s).

BIOS does rely on the disk - specifically the MBR in the first sector of the disk, which needs to have pointers to the boot loaders.
UEFI stores things in nvram - non-volatile memory - which isn't disk but might as well be. It may also need to store other stuff on the disk.
Both of them then rely on boot loaders which are installed by the operating system(s) in their various partition(s). The "secure boot" feature of UEFI will require the boot loaders to be signed, or something like that, and you don't want this. Booting in insecure mode is what you want; it just means "booting in modes not controlled by The Man".

If you replace the drive you will need obviously need to boot from a removable device to install anything, and the installation process will put a boot loader on the drive and set whatever firmware nvram settings are needed to link to it.

So, yes, I blame the squirrels.

[Tom_ZeCat]

I've made the jump. Despite many tests, I never found any hard evidence that this laptop's hard drive is bad, nor did I find any problems with its memory. I therefore deleted every partition with Gparted live, then I installed Kubuntu 14.04 LTS using the guided, default settings. Bye-bye dual boot on this thing. I was almost never booting into Windows 7, so it's not worth the bother of setting up a dual boot. I'll run the few Windows programs I use either under WINE or under VirtualBox. My Windows OS on this thing is totally subservient. When it runs, it needs to say, "My Lord Kubuntu, what ist thy bidding?" I still have a dual boot set up on my netbook. If for any reason I need to boot straight into Windows, I still can on that machine.

We'll see if this thing is stable now. I have a ton of work ahead of me setting up everything how I want it. Fortunately, I kept a detailed record in a CherryTree file of all my settings and every application I had installed.