System locks up Karmic Koala alpha 4

[Guest]

There isn't much else to say that's what it does...locks up! Yes, I am going to try Karmic alpha 5.

Just wondered if any one else out there had this problem on alpha 4 and does alpha 5 have the same issue?

Thanks

[dibl]

Re: System locks up Karmic Koala alpha 4

Out of idle curiosity, did you try Alt-SysRq R-S-E-I-U-B? If the system restarts, then we know it's actually running, and probably it's just an X server fault of some kind.

[GreyGeek]

Re: System locks up Karmic Koala alpha 4

I've been running the 64bit Karmic since Alpha4 was released and regularly do
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

It has been running exceptionally well for an alpha release. So much so that I haven't used my Jaunty side in a month.

When I did that last upgrade, earlier today, I noticed a tendency for GoogleEarth to load and run fine, but to lock up the screen when I exit it, or when I try to re-run it after a successful exit. Since Karmic is an alpha and I installed it to test it I will be exploring the GoogleEarth problem later today.

When you say "locked up" I take it to mean that you can not move the mouse curosr and the desktop does not respond to mouse clicks, and nothing typed on the keyboard causes any affect. If so, this suggests a video chip configuration problem. The Xorg.log may give clues.

The Sysrg key sequences may help determine of the lockup is merely the video or involves the keyboard too. This document explains how to use them and what they do:

http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sysrq.txt

The kernels in Kubuntu are compiled with the Magic Key Sequences ENABLED.
Using the Alt+Sysrq key combo PLUS the following keys in order, slowly, will cause a safe reboot of your system (IF the keyboard is still active):

"Raising Elephants" mnemonic device

A common idiom to perform a safe reboot of a Linux computer which has otherwise locked up, the QWERTY (or AZERTY) mnemonic "Raising Elephants Is So Utterly Boring", "Reboot Even If System Utterly Broken" or simply remembering the word "BUSIER" backwards, is often useful. It stands for

unRaw (take control of keyboard back from X),
tErminate (send SIGTERM to all processes, allowing them to terminate gracefully),
kIll (send SIGKILL to all processes, forcing them to terminate immediately),
Sync (flush data to disk),
Unmount (remount all filesystems read-only),
reBoot.

[GreyGeek]

Re: System locks up Karmic Koala alpha 4

A few days ago I did an update and my xserver started locking up. SecondLife has always worked well, but when I closed ti, GoogleEarth would kill the xserver and put me back at the login screen. I was about to report it when another update, 3 days ago, seemed to restore stability. Second Life was always worked well with the xserver. Stellarium worked well in the star navigation mode, but the configuration mode has become indecipherable.

Today's updates destroyed the stability of Second Life now, which locks up and requires MagicKeys to reboot my notebook. GoogleEarth or Stellarium still have their problems too. So my xserver stability in Karmic is heading South.