Trusty hange -- how to find out why?

[joneall]

Might be Nvidia driver problem

Another idea...

On my T520 with nVidia 4200M, I installed the latest 3.14 kernel from the Ubuntu mainline kernel PPA. I would get frequent hangs whenever my laptop was in its dock, which has two monitors connected via HDMI. I replaced the 3.14 kernel with a 3.15 kernel and the hangs disappeared.

Thanks for the suggestion, Steve, Sounds interesting, but this Ubuntu page

http://askubuntu.com/questions/16261...inline-kernels

says they are "not supported and must be used at your own risk" and that they may break drivers, especially nvidia, which may be my problem.

Actually, I had been using the so-called Nouveau driver and decided to install the Nvidida 331 driver to give it a try. The machnie actually held for over 2 days. It finally died when I had a half dozen or so Firefox windows open, each with a dozen or so tabs. I often see Firefox using more CPU than anybody else. Guess I should reduce my usage there.

I seem to have read somewhere that the Nvidia driver actually replaces Xorg. Is that true? If Kubuntu drops Xorg, that could be problematic.

[SteveRiley]

says they are "not supported and must be used at your own risk"

In Canonical-speak, that means that if you are a business paying for support, you will not receive support if you install one of these kernels. I suspect this is not your case. You can use these newer kernels and we'll still support you just fine here at Kubuntu Forum, and Ubuntu Forum will also help you out

and that they may break drivers

Standard boiler-plate language. The only way to know is to try. Fortunately, installing a newer kernel from here doesn't remove the existing one you already have. So there's no risk involved in experimenting with it.

I seem to have read somewhere that the Nvidia driver actually replaces Xorg. Is that true?

With what? The article you read is quite mistaken. I'm running the 337 driver and absolutely still have Xorg. In fact, if you look at the dependencies, you'll see that the nVidia binary driver package depends on Xorg.

Actually, I had been using the so-called Nouveau driver and decided to install the Nvidida 331 driver to give it a try.

I've been using *buntu with nVidia ever since I started my Linux journey, always on various flavors of ThinkPads. I am a fan of fresh Xorg and fresh kernels. My suggestion is that you:

1. Purge any nVidia binary packages (and related things like the settings one) currently installed
2. Boot the system and let it sort itself back to Nouveau temporarily
3. Enable the Xorg-Edgers PPA. It's the best place to get updated nVidia drivers and newer Xorg components
4. Install nvidia-337. The installer will automatically blacklist Nouveau
4. Install the most recent 3.15 kernel. Don't worry that it has "Utopic" in its name. On any given release, it's fine to run release+1 kernels

[joneall]

My suggestion is that you:

1. Purge any nVidia binary packages (and related things like the settings one) currently installed
2. Boot the system and let it sort itself back to Nouveau temporarily
3. Enable the Xorg-Edgers PPA. It's the best place to get updated nVidia drivers and newer Xorg components
4. Install nvidia-337. The installer will automatically blacklist Nouveau
4. Install the most recent 3.15 kernel. Don't worry that it has "Utopic" in its name. On any given release, it's fine to run release+1 kernels

Thanks for the suggestions. I am not sure how to do step no. 1, since I see

$ dpkg -l nvidia
dpkg-query: no packages found matching nvidia

[joneall]

How to install advanced kernel

Another idea...

On my T520 with nVidia 4200M, I installed the latest 3.14 kernel from the Ubuntu mainline kernel PPA. I would get frequent hangs whenever my laptop was in its dock, which has two monitors connected via HDMI. I replaced the 3.14 kernel with a 3.15 kernel and the hangs disappeared.

It is not clear to me just what I have to do with the stuff on that page. I presume I want ~kernel-ppa/mainline/v3.15-rc5-utopic, but there is are a lot of files in there.

After looking at http://askubuntu.com/questions/47397...the-kernel-ppa, I suppose I want to download and install

linux-headers-3.15.0-031500rc5-generic_3.15.0-031500rc5.201405091635_amd64.deb
linux-headers-3.15.0-031500rc5_3.15.0-031500rc5.201405091635_all.deb
linux-image-3.15.0-031500rc5-generic_3.15.0-031500rc5.201405091635_amd64.deb

All three or just the first and third? I do not know what low-latency refers to.

Thanks again for your help. I now have Nvidia running at 337.19 according to the driver manage. But when I try to run nvidia-settings, I get this:

$ /usr/bin/nvidia-settings
** Message: PRIME: No offloading required. Abort
** Message: PRIME: is it supported? no
Segmentation fault (core dumped)

Maybe it needs the later kernel.

[SteveRiley]

All three or just the first and third? I do not know what low-latency refers to.

You'll need all three. The image file for your processor architecture, the headers file for your processor architecture, and the headers file that isn't architecture-specific. Once you download them, open a console window, switch to your download directory, and install with:

sudo dpkg -i linux*deb

The above assumes you have no other kernel packages in the directory. If you do, then you'll need to be more specific. To catch only the above three, you could type:

sudo dpkg -i linux*3.15.0-031500rc5-generic_3.15.0-031500rc5.201405091635*.deb

And use the generic builds. The lowlatency builds are designed for use on low-powered machines that you want to run intense multimedia programs on. The processor performs more frequent context switches, ensuring that no single process has to wait to long for attention. On modern hardware, these kernels actually perform worse than the generic ones.

Thanks again for your help. I now have Nvidia running at 337.19 according to the driver manage. But when I try to run nvidia-settings, I get this:

That's the stuff to handle switchable graphics on laptops. What kind of machine do you have?

[joneall]

That's the stuff to handle switchable graphics on laptops. What kind of machine do you have?

A simple desktop from the local assembler, definitely not a speedy one (I don't use it for games, well, except for Kpatience...):

$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express DRAM Controller (rev 10)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82G33/G31/P35/P31 Express PCI Express Root Port (rev 10)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 01)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 01)
00:1d.0 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 01)
00:1d.1 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 01)
00:1d.2 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 01)
00:1d.3 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 01)
00:1d.7 USB controller: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 01)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 PCI Bridge (rev e1)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation 82801GB/GR (ICH7 Family) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 01)
00:1f.1 IDE interface: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) IDE Controller (rev 01)
00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SATA Controller [IDE mode] (rev 01)
00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation NM10/ICH7 Family SMBus Controller (rev 01)
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation GT215 [GeForce GT 240] (rev a2)
01:00.1 Audio device: NVIDIA Corporation High Definition Audio Controller (rev a1)
03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Qualcomm Atheros AR8131 Gigabit Ethernet (rev c0)

I do use it for handling photos and find it quite slow for doing perspective corrections in Gimp.

Thanks for all your help. Will install 3.15 tomorrow morning.

[SteveRiley]

You don't have switchable graphics. My laptop does, but I disable it in the firmware -- I want only the nVidia to run all the time. The drivers are packaged such that a normal install will bring in the Bumblebee-related stuff, too, which I don't want. Let's configure your system to behave the same.

Type:

sudo nano /etc/apt/preferences.d/no-bumblebee-prime

Inside the editor, paste the following text:

Package: bumblebee
Pin: version 0.0
Pin-Priority: -1

Package: bumblebee:i386
Pin: version 0.0
Pin-Priority: -1

Package: nvidia-prime
Pin: version 0.0
Pin-Priority: -1

Package: nvidia-prime:i386
Pin: version 0.0
Pin-Priority: -1

Press Ctrl+X to save the file and exit the editor. That'll prevent it from installing in the future. Now we need to get rid of the Bumblebee packages that are installed. This should do it:

sudo apt-get purge bumblebee bbswitch-dkms bumblebee-nvidia primus primus-libs nvidia-prime

[joneall]

All that done. So far, so good.

Thanks again.

[joneall]

A funny thing happened to me on my way to breakfast...

Funny thing happened this morning. I turned on the machine and then went to feed my cats. When I got back, the screen was black and it wanted me to logon without x11. I logged on and restarted. Odd...

Question: Since I installed the 3.15 kernel manually, Kubuntu is not going to update that for me. Should I just leave it or check by occassionally for a newer version?

[SteveRiley]

Question: Since I installed the 3.15 kernel manually, Kubuntu is not going to update that for me. Should I just leave it or check by occassionally for a newer version?

During a kernel's development phase, each time Linus declares an "rc" (release candidate) branch, Ubuntu will compile that and place it into the download location. I've used "rc" kernels for a long time without problems. Once a kernel goes gold, it's also made available, of course. There are occasional dot releases with minor updates and fixes; typically, these appear on Sunday evenings.

None of these will self update. You have to keep checking on your own.