Desktop access stopped working Ku18.04.2 eeePC

[frankus333]

Thanks claydoh

I am not sure I am following what you meant by the implication of this being an "older system". Do you mean that the way the updater works differs depending on hardware? Or the fact that my efforts to disable the updater may not apply because it is older hardware? I guess I assumed the software would be the same on any system at the level of the GUI or command line. I don't understand why turning things off doesn't actually turn them off, which makes me wonder if there are other things that trigger the updater that I haven't found yet?

A process called "kde5", part of "kedinit5", seems to start just before "update-apt-xapi". Maybe that is useful info?

As you suggest, I am hoping there may be someone else on the forum with the knowledge of older systems, or the update processes specifically, who could tell me where else to look, or how else to go about disabling the updating system?

If there isn't, I guess I will have to put up with the fact that the machine is practically unusable for the first 10 minutes after each reboot, all because it is doing something I don't want it to do, and I have told it not to do, but it won't take no for an answer!

Even with the above settings in Discover telling it not to update, just bringing it up starts a check for updates, without any action from me. Surely this is not normal behaviour for the updater? If it is, why have a "Check for Updates" button? Another strange thing is that I just have to move the mouse over part of the Discover screen to have the "plasma-discover" process cpu jump up to 50% again for a few seconds. This does not happen with pointer movement over other windows. Maybe there is a fault with the Discover module? Also, I notice a number of entries under CPU% column saying "unknown". I have never actually noticed that in other system monitors before.

I notice in the list of sources on the front, it says I have PackageKit backend installed, but not Flatpack or Snap backends. PackageKit is one of the processes that comes up with the updating; do I need it? There is an option to uninstall it.

[claydoh]

Thanks claydoh

I am not sure I am following what you meant by the implication of this being an "older system". Do you mean that the way the updater works differs depending on hardware? Or the fact that my efforts to disable the updater may not apply because it is older hardware? I guess I assumed the software would be the same on any system at the level of the GUI or command line. I don't understand why turning things off doesn't actually turn them off, which makes me wonder if there are other things that trigger the updater that I haven't found yet?

Your cpu is a about on par with a Pentium 3, speed wise. We are talking 1999 era or so. The gpu is not quite that old, but still there. It is just slow everywhere.

A process called "kde5", part of "kedinit5", seems to start just before "update-apt-xapi". Maybe that is useful info?

As you suggest, I am hoping there may be someone else on the forum with the knowledge of older systems, or the update processes specifically, who could tell me where else to look, or how else to go about disabling the updating system?

Searching will helps a lot
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1048...-kubuntu-18-04

If there isn't, I guess I will have to put up with the fact that the machine is practically unusable for the first 10 minutes after each reboot, all because it is doing something I don't want it to do, and I have told it not to do, but it won't take no for an answer!

It will still be slow even after disabling this. Plasma 5 is jut very 'heavy' for this hardware, as is Gnome, and others. Lxde/Lxqt, and *maybe* Xfce are lighter, but depending on the distro, there will always be things to turn off.

Actually, what you might do instead of disabling the update, which does not take much horsepower at all, just network traffic. , is to disable, or remove apt-xapian-index, which is what is hogging your system as it indexes things, and ism not needed by Discover at all. it is needed by the Driver manager, but in your case your system does not need any proprietary drivers.

A quick search:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1048...-kubuntu-18-04

Even with the above settings in Discover telling it not to update, just bringing it up starts a check for updates, without any action from me. Surely this is not normal behaviour for the updater? If it is, why have a "Check for Updates" button? Another strange thing is that I just have to move the mouse over part of the Discover screen to have the "plasma-discover" process cpu jump up to 50% again for a few seconds. This does not happen with pointer movement over other windows. Maybe there is a fault with the Discover module? Also, I notice a number of entries under CPU% column saying "unknown". I have never actually noticed that in other system monitors before.

Actually it is. It will check sometime after boot, and periodically through the day, again this is low level stuff. The Xapian stuff is what i hurting, I think.

I notice in the list of sources on the front, it says I have PackageKit backend installed, but not Flatpack or Snap backends. PackageKit is one of the processes that comes up with the updating; do I need it? There is an option to uninstall it.

Yes, you need Packagekit, it is the command-line stuff that hooks into apt to do the installing ans uninstalling.

I think you have the choice of investigating and debloating a full blown desktop distro, like Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and even Xubuntu, or look at derivatives that will work better on your hardware, and give you an easier time so that you can get a feel for things without having to fight with things. I do suggest Lubuntu 18.04 immensely. Or, if you are still keen on Plasma, then KDE Neon, which has the Ubuntu backend, but none of the bloat by default - no xapian indexing, no Kontact. And turn off file indexing. The indexes are slowing things not by cpu or ram, but by churning the hard drive, I do believe. Try a live usb of these, see how they feel compared to what you have.

But till waiting for others to chime in with opinions, where the heck is everybody?
Asleep right now, lol but not all day

[frankus333]

Thanks for continuing to respond, claydoh, and yes, "where the heck is everybody?"

Sorry, but we still seem to be at cross purposes, and that may be in part because I am cramming too much into each post.

I understand the machine is slow because it is old, and I can accept that sluggishness for my limited demand circumstances. The xapi process (command "/usr/bin/python3 /usr/sbin/update-apt-xapian-index --batch-mode --force --update"), which I presume is updating and/or indexing stuff, runs for about 8 to 10 minutes after each bootup. After this, the machine works at an acceptable pace for me when doing basic things like web surfing, email, office tasks. What I want to know is how to make this updating and/or indexing stuff not run when I tell it I don't want it to, so I don't have to wait 10 minutes after every bootup to do anything I want to do.

I think I have told it to stop automatically updating and/or indexing both via turning automatic updates off in Discover settings, and also via the config file I noted in post #14 (and which you referenced in the link you provided twice in your last post).

Also, in "System Settings > Search", the "Also index file content" option is not selected, but "Enable File Search" is selected. Should it be deselected as well?

Despite all this, the xapi process still keeps automatically running after each bootup. If the software did what I asked and did not run that "apt-xapian-index" stuff, the resource demands of xapian would not be an issue.

I don't want the updater (or anything else) to start any updating and/or indexing automatically under any circumstances; I will do my updating myself via Konsole, only when I want to. This morning, this Konsole updating of about 11 packages took about 3 minutes all up; easy peasy. Prior to that updating, just opening Discover and waiting for the window to fully present and tell me the updates were there took 5 minutes; useless.

So, if what I have done is not enough to make the software stop running the "xapian stuff" automatically, what else is needed to do just that?

[jlittle]

I suspect something is going wrong with the xapian index update, and every time you boot it tries again. It caused problems for a lot of systems some years ago, but I can't remember when. You might investigate logs, or try running it in a konsole.

2 GB of RAM is a bit tight these days. I'm finding KDE plasma uses less RAM than KDE 4, but I think they're not doing 32 bit any more. I suspect Google Chrome would choke.

I really liked Lubuntu when it was based on 14.04. A lot of stuff 'just worked' out of the box. I had it running on several old boxes, one with only 1 GB of RAM. When it rebased itself on 16.04 it got very slow to boot and for a few minutes afterwards. I later found out that I should have reinstalled; the 14.04 to 16.04 upgrade was "not recommended", but by then I'd given up on it.

Regards, John Little

[claydoh]

Uninstall it. You don't need/want it and the things that need it, you do not need - the Driver Manager components that use/require are useless on your system as you don't have any proprietary drivers on your system.

The search options are probably fine, being able to find files by name is ok, it is the content indexing that churns a hard drive. If in doubt, disable all the options.


Also, by default Kubuntu, like most distros will check for updates regularly, but does not install them. Checking uses very little resources. The constant xapian indexing must be a bug, this is not the normal, expected behavior. It wasn't on the less ancient celeron Baytrail era Atom mini laptops I had until recently, nor the dual core Chromebook I had.


Another tweak thing i just remembered:
monitor the ram usage, particularly looking for swap usage. Some systems seem to hit the swap very early, even before too much physical ram is used. this bogs down a hard drive immensely. a LOT. If you can hear the hard drive working hard when it slows down to a crawl, this is probably happening too, or it may be the main thing slowing you down, perhaps.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Sw...I_change_it.3F

[frankus333]

Thanks jlittle and claydoh

It seems to me as well that there is a bug somewhere, as per the anomalies above of "unknown" appearing in the CPU% usage column, and the increased CPU% with pointer movement over the Discover window. The drag occurs with the system just checking for updates, not actually installing them. The checking and installing via Konsole uses less resources for a shorter time than just checking via automatic updating. The LM 18.3KDE (and XFCE) installations don't have the automatic updating problem, although they are based on 16.04. They will be supported by Mint to April 2021. Kubuntu.org tells me that 16.04 is EOL in two months, so not an option for Kubuntu.

I have been watching memory and swap use as well via Ksysguard. Only about half of my RAM gets used, and swap is never more than 20-30 MB. After reboot, swap is 0 MB, and while the "update-apt-xapi" and then "python3" (which I haven't mentioned before) processes are running, swap remains at 0MB, and memory peaks up by about 300MB, but comes back down again after. The hard drive light is flickering on dimly, not fully on, during this process. Swappiness is 60, as standard. Chromium and Firefox are about equally responsive, and useable when no xapi stuff is happening.

I would prefer to find the way to disable automatic triggering of xapian or xapi without uninstalling, but if I need to, how exactly would I uninstall xapian or xapi without crippling something else?

[claydoh]

uninstall the package
sudo apt remove apt-xapian-index

again, you are not crippling anything.

My Kubuntu PC is back home in the US, so i cannot quickly check so I see what is going on, or supposed to be going on.

Is Discover opening when you log in? Normally, the updater widget just notices when a regular command line check is done in the background, and you see something in the system tray. Discover itself DOES check for updates when it is opened, but does not usually run at login. If it is, this means it was either open when you logged out, or is 'stuck' in the saved session settings. By default, Plasma will open previously running programs. This may be what is happening here? You can turn that off in system Settings >> Startup and Shutdown >> Session Settings.

I don't know why I did not see this. Probably because i have work, visiting a foreign country, and an Aussie redhead distracting me

[frankus333]

Thanks claydoh

The Discover window does not come up each bootup, and the process plasma-discover is not running unless I start Discover. There is usually no updates related widget in the system tray, until Discover finds some updates. I always have the startup option of an empty session for each bootup. There doesn't seem to be anything relevant listed in Background Services.

There is an option to list "Applications to be excluded from sessions:" which is blank. Would it help to list Discover there anyway, and how would I write it; just "Discover" or some process name?

BTW: how can I get the Updates widget to be in the visible system tray, to keep an eye on it? It is in the tray additional list hidden icons now.

EDIT: The process kde5 seems to start just before update-apt-xapi. Is this a clue to the triggering?

[frankus333]

jlittle

To further explore what might be wrong with xapian, how would I go about investigating logs, or running xapian in a Konsole? What would I be looking for?

As above, a process called "kde5", part of "kedinit5", seems to start just before "update-apt-xapi". Is this a useful clue?

[frankus333]

BTW: I am using

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

to do my updating from Konsole. I used to use this via the tty in the past before upgrade from 14.04. Is that still the correct/best code?

[claydoh]

You can right click on the systray area and configure items to be hidden, automatically visible when necessary, or always visible.

Again, Discover, or rather the update notification applet, is not performing the update, it is apt in the background. it shows the icon when there are updates found by apt.
Xapian has nothing to do with Discover at all, and is unnecessary on your system, and nothing is broken if you uninstall it.

I think I linked to info on what to edit to turn off the scheduled command line updates that *buntu/debian have set as defaults. Disabling this will not disable xapian, that will just run the next time you check for updates manually. Ditch apt-xapian-index

[claydoh]

BTW: I am using

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

to do my updating from Konsole. I used to use this via the tty in the past before upgrade from 14.04. Is that still the correct/best code?

That is fine, those are still good commands, though it has been updated since then. You will see these instead:

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-uograde

These do the same things as your apt-get commands, and there is zero harm or fault in using the older ones.

[claydoh]

jlittle

As above, a process called "kde5", part of "kedinit5", seems to start just before "update-apt-xapi". Is this a useful clue?

No, that s kded5 actually
These are always running in the background, and are Plams/kde specific services. These may jump up to the top of the chain at times, but they do not involve xapian, which is not a Plasma/KDE process or module.

[frankus333]

Thanks for multiple replies claydoh

I notice in Muon that packages "apt-xapian-index", "python3-xapian" and "libkf5akonadisearchxapian5" are all installed. However, I also notice that when I start Muon, the same behaviour ("update-apt-xapi" starting, followed by "python3") occurs on the first occasion. If I disable it, will this prevent Muon from working properly?

Also, if I remove "apt-xapian-index", I presume I can put it back the way things were later if I want?

[claydoh]

Yes, you can always reinstall what was removed.

I am guessing that Muon has been added to a default Kubuntu? Or did you install it yourself? It had been removed as a default some time back. It does require apt-xapian-index, and would be removed if you uninstalled apt-xapian-index.

I suggest installing the much lighter Synaptic instead. It has the same functionality, and is robust and stable.
If you wanted to go back, just reinstalling muon will also pull in apt-xapian-index and other dependencies at the same time.