Gutsy to Feisty Preparation? (nvidia-glx, xorg.conf, ntfs-3g, ALSA, fstab, ffox)

[c_martini]

In anticipation of the official Gutsy launch, I would like to prep my machine for the upgrade from Feisty.

My questions are as follows:

1. nvidia-glx-new driver: Does this need to revert to the 'nv' driver before upgrade?

I have had a problem by where something is amiss in my xorg.conf and the kdesktop always loads with the incorrect resolution (640x480). I always have to open the nvidia-settings and change resolution to 1400x1050 or 1280x1024 and apply the settings manually after every reboot (have tried this with root as well and still does not save the settings, yet my xorg.conf looks fine). Should I also scrap my xorg.conf and let the upgrade take me into shiny new bulletproof-x to sort out my xorg.conf?

2. ntfs-3g driver: Since Gutsy now includes this, should I remove this as well and backup/remove my fstab?

3. sources.lst: well this has all my little additional repositories for all the extra bits I have installed over the past several months. How should I strip this down to ensure the smoothest upgrade possible?

4. Firefox: I have the Swiftfox variant installed with some plugins, including Flash. Since Gutsy now includes a new method for installing some common firefox plugins and flash, should I remove Swiftfox or any of its associated plugins?

5. ALSA driver: I have installed the latest version and compiled for my kernel version (linux 2.6.20.16-generic) with a custom .asoundrc config for my m-audio revolution 5.1. Should I remove ALSA and backup my .asoundrc?

I think those are most important changes I have made from the default Feisty install, aside from all the usual updates...

[c_martini]

Re: Gutsy to Feisty Preparation? (the dist upgrade and CONGRATS TO DEVS!)

To update those who may be interested in this post:

I posted the above questions in the Ubuntu forums as well and got the following suggestions:

First sudo apt-get autoclean

1. No, just leave it as it is.
2. No let gutsy do the work for you.
3. sudo cp sources.lst sources.lst_feisty, then let gutsy change sources.lst and copy paste from feisty backup you made
4. If you did this with automatix remove them and remove automatix, else just take your chnces, you dont have to remove anything.
5. This may get configured for you, im not sure.

Armed with these suggestions and my own experience using Linux, I embarked on the distribution upgrade.

kdesu "adept_manager --version-upgrade" - This tool has come a long way. It is now easily configurable if you have the package 'software-properties-kde' installed. You can configure how Adept manages the repository sources by going to the Adept/Manage Repositories menu item. You can also change the mirrors where packages are sourced with a nifty dropdown menu in the first dialogue page of that tool...

I first ran this upgrade with settings according to the official Kubuntu instructions. The upgrade failed during the "preparing software channels" step. After a few tries I realised that I still had quite a few repositories I had added to my sources.lst after my last dist upgrade to Feisty. Henceforth I stripped the sources.lst down to the essential ubuntu repositories and changed the mirror where the packages would be downloaded from as the default servers were quite busy and slowing down with the demand last night fresh after the launch.

This time the upgrade was able to get past the point where it had before, actually downloading all the packages and beginning to install the upgrade. Well it got to 52% after a couple of hours and then threw up an error about not being able to install some ttf.deb package (probably fonts) and even after clicking 'close' the install just stopped right there and didn't move at all. After an appreciable amount of time I simply closed the upgrade. Fearing the system would become unusable, I jumped into the console and typed the following commands:

sudo dpkg --configure -a

This allowed the rest of the downloaded packages to finish installing.

sudo apt-get autoremove

This cleans up the leftover unneeded packages.

Though it wasn't the smoothest upgrade, I can see that good progress has been made over the last few releases.

As it stands now, a couple of things are broken on my system. Compiz does not work properly since the upgrade (no window borders) and Xorg is a bit screwed (resolution is not reported correctly and translates poorly when logging in remotely. I suspect these problems are perhaps because I did have some customisations in place previously to get separate X screens working with my dual Nvidia cards. Those problems will not be all that difficult to sort out I suspect...

All in all I am impressed with this Gutsy release... The desktop is improved and things just look and feel smoother and more professional. Konqueror is noticeably faster. The new Kubuntu artwork is very nice. I have yet to sit and play with all the other new features... Can't wait!

A BIG CONGRATULATIONS go to all the developers who have put their time and effort into this.

[pookito]

Re: Gutsy to Feisty Preparation? (nvidia-glx, xorg.conf, ntfs-3g, ALSA, fstab, ffox)

I was reading your reply and I was thinking about my machine. I do have nvidia and after the update I can not still get it to work. Not even with the restricted driver option that kde or gnome is giving me. The only way it seems to work is with the restricted driver option which once enable and the driver is downloaded and after the x-server restart seems to work fine. The problem comes in after I reboot the computer. the xserver can not read the xorg.conf with the nvidia proprietary driver. I have to manually change the xorg.conf file from "nvidia" to "nv" driver. If you could show me how to fix the problem I would appreciated.

[c_martini]

Re: Gutsy to Feisty Preparation? (nvidia-glx, xorg.conf, ntfs-3g, ALSA, fstab, ffox)

pookito,
Do you have the nvidia settings application? I have used this in my system with much better sucess than the monitor and display settings in the system settings panel.

I do not know very much about the restricted drivers application, though my Nvidia card is using the proprietary driver which was enabled using that application. If i'm not mistaken the install for that driver should also install the nvidia settings application which can be found in the system sub menu in the kmenu in KDE or using alt+f2 and enter the command sudo nvidia-settings. You should be able to change and save settings to xorg.conf . Keep in mind this settings panel has both an "apply" and a "save to x configuration file" button, which do 2 different things. Apply will only apply the current settings and will not change xorg.conf. Once you have the settings you want and have tested working, use the save to x button...

Hope this helps a bit...