Final Focal on Kubuntu 20.04

[GreyGeek]

I ran into it awhile ago. Here is where it is described, and how to fix it:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...h/+bug/1866372

Doing the manual edit didn't work for me (strangely), so I created the patch given in the last post on that bug by copying and pasting.

diff -Npaur a/usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/plymouth b/usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/plymouth
--- a/usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/plymouth    2020-03-06 12:45:51.563041573 -0500
+++ b/usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/plymouth    2020-03-06 12:50:15.335756844 -0500
@@ -119,6 +119,7 @@ case "${THEME_NAME}" in
         ;;
 
     *)
+        mkdir -p "${DESTDIR}/usr/share/plymouth/themes/spinner"
         cp /usr/share/plymouth/ubuntu-logo.png "${DESTDIR}/usr/share/plymouth"
         cp /usr/share/plymouth/ubuntu-logo.png "${DESTDIR}/usr/share/plymouth/themes/spinner/watermark.png"

I saved it as 1866732.patch in my home account and then ran it from a root console while in my home account using the following command:

patch /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/plymouth < 1866372.patch

It worked.

Adding that line was an easy edit to /usr/share/initramfs-tools/hooks/plymouth to make, so I don't understand why my edit didn't work and that patch did.

[Snowhog]

Getting it here. Is this an inconvenience error, or something more? Specifically, should one wait to reboot until this is fixed?

[acheron]

Heads up that you will likely get this error on upgrade today: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...h/+bug/1866377

[NoWorries]

That is because AMD uses and supports the open amdgpu driver, and Mesa. Their AMDGPU-PRO is for professional graphics workstation usage, so seldom adds anything for most users, and is actually based on the open driver. I can see AMD not having a PRO driver for this integrated (with Intel) GPU.

There are now too many mesa PPAs, but oibaf is one of the best, but some don't like the daily updates.

The Padoka PPA is another long running PPA that is updated less often, though it has been a month since the last update there.
If you are a gamer, there are some others, I believe one if not both are maintained by different Valve developers.:

https://launchpad.net/~ernstp/+archive/ubuntu/mesaaco

https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa

Using the first one, I did see a small but noticeable improvement in Rise of the Tomb Raider as well as Metro Exodus.
I have not used the second one since I upgraded to a much newer refurb PC, and 'downgraded' the RX 560 to an older but more powerful RX 480 gpu

The newest AMD cards, especially the super high end ones require a much newer kernel

Thanks very much for the alternative drivers for the AMD card. I decided to try https://launchpad.net/~ernstp/+archive/ubuntu/mesaaco. Using glmark2, I got the fastest glmark2 score of 2422. My fastest score with oibaf was 3587 on the 10th Feb this year. I decided to remove the software source mesaaso in Muon and enable oibaf. Unfortunately I did not get any updates from oibaf. So as to not waste time, I decided to re-install and start again.

I found it interesting that when I used glmark2 after this fresh installation, the score was 839 I added the oibaf ppa and, with this new installation, the fastest glmark2 score was now 2520. My current kernel version is 5.4.0-17.

I decide to remove, the following packages to make sure the provided default AMD drivers were not implicated in the performance.

• xserver-xorg-amdgpu

• xserver-xorg-video-all

This change made no difference. I found it quite useful reading the proposed solutions given at https://linuxconfig.org/amd-radeon-u...r-installation. The comment here was that oibaf was ahead of the stable default opensource driver. To avoid frequent downloads from oibaf, I sometimes disable this ppa in Moun package manager.

[GreyGeek]

No booms here, either.
Just lightening fast smooooothness!

[kyonides]

There'll be no kaboom as long as you avoid adding the following (unsupported) PPA:

pparoject-K9/ppa

and then installing the package: Illudium-Q-36ESM.deb

Warning: Just don't do it!

O_o? Why do you say that? Is it some sort of malware? A true piece of crap? Or is it just extremely outdated?

[Snowhog]

There'll be no kaboom as long as you avoid adding the following (unsupported) PPA:

pparoject-K9/ppa

and then installing the package: Illudium-Q-36ESM.deb

Warning: Just don't do it!

[claydoh]

[claydoh]

The graphic drivers did not add anything at this stage whereas the oibaf certainly adds packages on a daily basis. I do this because my system has an AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL / 870 Graphics adapter. Currently there is no Linux driver for this card from AMD.

That is because AMD uses and supports the open amdgpu driver, and Mesa. Their AMDGPU-PRO is for professional graphics workstation usage, so seldom adds anything for most users, and is actually based on the open driver. I can see AMD not having a PRO driver for this integrated (with Intel) GPU.

There are now too many mesa PPAs, but oibaf is one of the best, but some don't like the daily updates.

The Padoka PPA is another long running PPA that is updated less often, though it has been a month since the last update there.
If you are a gamer, there are some others, I believe one if not both are maintained by different Valve developers.:

https://launchpad.net/~ernstp/+archive/ubuntu/mesaaco

https://launchpad.net/~kisak/+archive/ubuntu/kisak-mesa

Using the first one, I did see a small but noticeable improvement in Rise of the Tomb Raider as well as Metro Exodus.
I have not used the second one since I upgraded to a much newer refurb PC, and 'downgraded' the RX 560 to an older but more powerful RX 480 gpu


The newest AMD cards, especially the super high end ones require a much newer kernel

[Don B. Cilly]

No BOOMs here. After a plasma upgrade, it is a good practice to restart plasma to avoid compatibility issues

Yeah, well, what went BOOM is something else then. It's neon Testing... :·) just coincidentally it got 5.18.2.
And it did it (and keeps doing it) at boot.
It's a total freeze. Panel moves to the left, network notification freezes in place, analog clock has immovable seconds hand, Latte is shown but unresponsive. The mouse moves. Ctrl-alt-del does nothing.

I'll update 20.04 and see what it does, shall I.

[EDIT] on 20.04, after update and reboot, no BOOM.
But it's still on 5.18.1.

Repositories, it says

Hit:1 http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal InRelease
Hit:2 http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-updates InRelease
Hit:3 http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-security InRelease
Hit:4 http://es.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu focal-backports InRelease

[NoWorries]

I will remove the staging-kde-applications.

I also got KDE Plasma 5.18.2 quite a few hours ago and it all went well without a hitch.

The problem with Desktop Widgets going for a walk about has yet to be resolved on my system, so I shifted my Hard Disk Space Usage to the top left corner and now it stays put!

[kubicle]

Following what you suggested I did:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/staging-kdeapplications

I don't think he really suggested you should actually do that

I got 5.18. 2 this morning on neon testing and it pretty much went BOOM
Symptoms being total freeze for five full minutes then everything going normal.

No BOOMs here. After a plasma upgrade, it is a good practice to restart plasma to avoid compatibility issues (you might still have parts of the old version running in memory, and there might be compatibility problems if you try to run something from the new version on top of that)

[acheron]

Nothing 'boom' here.

[Don B. Cilly]

Plasm 5.18. 2 landing in Focal

I got 5.18. 2 this morning on neon testing and it pretty much went BOOM
Symptoms being total freeze for five full minutes then everything going normal.

[NoWorries]

From what verndog had done to fix up Dolphin, I decided to do a re-install. I used the 24th Feb version, and since I have a UHD system, I found that I could only do an installation if I selected "start Kubuntu (Safe graphics)" option. On a previous installation I did not need to do this.

The above problems that I reported above still exist after the re-install.

I found that after the installation with the system updated by the pre-released option, I had all the major items that I listed at the 2 Month status above. So I didn't add the staging PPAs. Following what you suggested I did:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kubuntu-ppa/staging-kdeapplications

I found that this ppa did not add any updated packages.

So I now have the following shown below.



The graphic drivers did not add anything at this stage whereas the oibaf certainly adds packages on a daily basis. I do this because my system has an AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL / 870 Graphics adapter. Currently there is no Linux driver for this card from AMD.

I add the kernel ppa to get the latest update which will hopefully benefit my graphics performance.

I add the firefox-next because, when I installed Focal, launching Firefox meant that I would have to fill in all the details for it to work. I found that the next version worked with all my bookmarks and logins that I use frequently.

So thanks claydoh for your suggestions and I hope the above clarifies why I do what I do.