Kubuntu frequently hangs

[syd]

I really like Kubuntu Dapper Drake. I've tried it for some time now. But I have a problem with that the computer quite frequently stops responding. The only thing I'm able to do is move the mouse pointer. I'm not able to click on anything or use the keyboard.

I use 32 bit Kubuntu on an AMD Sempron machine with Nvidia 6800GT graphics card, and the nvidia-glx package installed.

Does anyone have a solution to this?

[r3dick]

Re: Kubuntu frequently hangs

I too am having very similiar problem with Kubuntu. My machine is a P4 with Nvidia 4200 graphics card with the nvidia-glx. If you find a fix could you let me know too? thanks

Dick

[syd]

Re: Kubuntu frequently hangs

I've still not found any solution. The problem is most annoying, and happens about once every hour or so.

The keyboard becomes unresponsive to any keypress and key-combinations, and the mouse becomes unresponsive to any mouseclick, so the only thing left is to power off the computer.

I really want to use Kubuntu, so does anyone know of a solution or workaround for this?

[askrieger]

Re: Kubuntu frequently hangs

That sounds like you have a memory leak. some application that you think has closed is actually still open and is gradually eating up more and more of your memory until the whole machine comes to a crashing halt. When the machine STARTS to get slow. Run ksysgaurd>Process Table>All Processes>System% and see if anything is taking a lot resources. Then, (unless it's xorg or something similar) kill it. For example, the little Amarok icon in the systray is the third largest resource hog on my system.

[syd]

Re: Kubuntu frequently hangs

Some time after I posted this, I discovered that the problem was due to nvidia-glx. I also learnt a new key-combination that I wasn't aware of: Alt+Sysrq+K did work to restart KDE, without having to turn off the computer. But the permanent solution (the problem happened way too often to be acceptable), was to remove the nvidia-glx, and thereby saying farewell to all the hardware graphics acceleration.

[ulriks]

Re: Kubuntu frequently hangs

I have had problems with the stability of my desktop since I upgraded the nvidia-glx driver Saturday.

The update (I updated several packages at the same time,so I have no idea which one is to blame) somehow removed the displayconfig in KDE, which I reinstalled. Thinking something else was broken I reinstalled KDE (sudo apt-get install --reinstall kde).

The desktop freezes almost randomly - it seems to be provoked by minimising or maximising windows - but keyboard and mouse works well; I can toggle numlock and move the mouse, but the cursor does not change (if it for instance is over a text area when the desktop freezes, then the cursor does not change to an arrow, when moved out of the text area).

I tried to downgrade to an older nvidia-driver, but that killed the xserver completely, and reinstalling the driver after reinstall of xserver-xorg obviously did not help. Using the nv or vesa drivers are not an option, as the xserver cannot start. I also tried to reinstall the nvidia-glx driver using automatix2, but that did not help either

One thing I've noticed is that using the computer makes it freeze, as it can run all day while I'm at work without any problems, and as I said, it seems to be connected to minimising/maximisng windows - it can certainly provoke a freeze.

Any idea whats up, and how to fix it? It is quite annoying

I am running
Linux 2.6.17-10-386
Qt: 3.3.6
KDE: 3.5.5

Monitor:
Dell, E152FPp

Graphics Card:
Nvidia GeForce4 MX 440 AGP 8x, 128 Mb RAM

[syd]

Re: Kubuntu frequently hangs

Sorry, I have no idea how to fix it.

For me the problem seems to be connected to using the mouse wheel. I think that's what triggering the freezing most of the time for me. The only thing I know that has worked, is to use the nv driver instead. I hate losing all the OpenGL capabilities, but that seems to be the only solution (I never manage to keep my finger away from the mouse wheel).

Now, I'm using Edgy. The problem is just the same there as it was with Dapper.