Fresh install, fresh problems

[Chew N Tobacca]

Hello all, I have a new custom-built machine running dual boot with Windows 7 Ultimate x64 and Kubuntu 12.04.2 i386, and having serious issues. First I will list my hardware configuration:

Motherboard: Asus M5A97 R2.0
CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE
RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance (4GBx2)
GPU: Asus HD7770-1GD5
PSU: SeaSonic MII 620 Bronze
HDD: Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB, WD Raptor WD360
ODD: Lite-On iHAS424

I should mention that Windows 7 runs great, trouble-free. Installation of Kubuntu went smoothly. I have been running Kubuntu 12.04 on my laptop and old desktop, works great on both. Upon my first boot into Kubuntu on my new build, I started having serious trouble. Here's a description of my trouble so far:

1. NONE of the startup services start on boot or login. In order to even access the "Service Manager" section of "Startup and Shutdown", I must run the "systemsettings" command as root (kdesudo). I can start each of them manually, and any of these begin to run. The only exception is the "Notification Helper" service crashes immediately on starting it. Verifying that all services are running and scheduled to start at login, after restart or logout/login, NOTHING is running.

2. It takes a very, very long time to shutdown/logout/restart (sometimes as much as 5 minutes), unless I press the physical power button on the case to shut down. This works immediately. There are no issues BOOTING from cold boot or restart, system boots to desktop in 30 seconds or less.

I am finding myself at a loss in troubleshooting. Please help!!

Thanks in advance.
-Chew

[claydoh]

Having to use kdesudo to run anything in System Settings and the inability of user services to run likely means some file permissions got changed somehow - one cause is running GUI applications using sudo from the terminal. It's not the only way, though.

To fix this, you can run this command from a terminal:

sudo chown -Rv username:username /home/username

chown is the command to change ownership on files/directories

the -Rv makes the action recursive, diving into all files and folders below the specified path. the "v" just makes the action show all output in the screen. and is optional

username is just that


Shutdown slowness I cannot say what causes that.

[jlittle]

Sounds awfully like a borked install. I'd be tempted to cut losses and start again. Maybe make another 20 GiB or so partition and install to that, with a wired connection to the Internet to help things go smoothly.

Regards, John Little

[Chew N Tobacca]

Thanks for your input. To satisfy my suspicion, I grabbed a live CD and did some tinkering. I have 2 live CD's, one from the first official release of 12.04, and another from the 12.04.2 release. Both of these behave in the same manner as I described above - no startup services were running, and a number of things were very, very slow responding.

claydoh: I have verified user ownership/permissions of /home folder, and authority of user account. (I am the only user, so only 1 user account exists, and has root priveleges with UID of 1000.)

jlittle: After finding comparable issues with 2 different live CD's, I don't believe the install is corrupt in any way. The partition where Kubuntu is installed is 488GB, so free space is no concern. Also, the install was performed with a gigabit connection to DSL. I've checked the drive for failures etc. using a few utilities (such as testdisk), and none of the partitions encountered any errors. All this makes me a bit hesitant, and rather feel as though a new install would be losing ground.

I am still looking for a solution. I think that if I find a fix for the startup services issue, most everything else should fall into place.

Thanks again.
-Chew

[Chew N Tobacca]

Yesterday I downloaded Kubuntu 12.04.2-amd64 for kicks and, to add to my confusion, works great. All hardware is recognized, services start the way they are supposed to, and I even have sound (something else I noticed when I booted the 64-bit). All the things that gave me problems work great. Everything opens right up, and the system shuts right down. I have since made a persistent USB, and have been fiddling with that.

I understand that there are differences between the 32-bit and the 64-bit, but to be night and day seems rather odd.

I will continue to expiriment with the 64-bit; if all goes well, I will install and report back with my findings.

Thanks again for those of you who provided suggestions.
-Chew

[SteveRiley]

Since you have a 64-bit processor, there's absolutely no reason to use 32-bit software. I know that doesn't explain your admittedly very odd situation, though.

Wait -- I see you have 8 GB RAM. 32-bit operating systems can't see beyond 4 GB, which means half your RAM goes unused if you install the -i386 build. Could it be that doing this just puts your computer into some kind of funk? Dunno...

[Chew N Tobacca]

Very good point. I'd been running 32-bit OS for years, as I understood that 32-bit versions had better package support, etc., but that seems to have been rectified. When I first was introduced to the *buntu OS back in the days of 6.06, there was not a great deal of 64-bit support, nor did I have a 64-bit system. However, I had installed 32-bit Kubuntu (as mentioned) on my old box which had a different AMD Quad-Core CPU and initially 4GB of RAM. Later I upgraded to 8GB, and the OS seemed to recognize the change and was OK with it.

Anywho, after tinkering with the 64-bit, I went ahead and did the install. That part went great, until reboot. I was then greeted by the "grub>" prompt. It was an easy fix; I could boot using Super Grub 2 Disk, so I knew the install was fine (and everything worked the way I thought it should!). I was successful after installing the "grub-pc" package and configuring that. Now all is well.

Although I now have a fully-functional 64-bit install of my favorite *buntu, I would still like to know what went wrong with the 32-bit.

I also must say: Props to the Kubuntu crew for such an awesome OS.

-Chew

[SteveRiley]

I had installed 32-bit Kubuntu (as mentioned) on my old box which had a different AMD Quad-Core CPU and initially 4GB of RAM. Later I upgraded to 8GB, and the OS seemed to recognize the change and was OK with it.

Ah, you were probably running the PAE kernel, then.