Thinking and wondering out loud...

[DoYouKubuntu]

So was my son!

I'll bet! I mean, why mess with perfection, right?

A minor update: last night, right before putting the laptop to bed, I adjusted its power/display settings. I wanted to test having the screen turn off and then verify that I could awaken it by touching a key. So I set it for 1 minute, the screen turned off as expected, I touched [ctrl], the screen came back on, and everything was good to go. Then I adjusted the minutes to what I actually wanted, and moved the laptop over to its nightly spot--where I can see it. I left its ping test running in Konsole--as I had when I tested it a moment earlier. The whole point of this was to NOT close the laptop, as that seems to have something to do with the nightly lockups; so instead of closing the lid, I was just going to let the screen go dark with the lid up. About 15 minutes later, I glanced over and realized that the screen hadn't turned off...as it should have 5 minutes earlier.

I grabbed its trackball and started poking around in settings, to see what I'd done to make this happen...but I hadn't done anything. All I'd done is what I said above: I changed the number of minutes. From that point on, nothing related to the screen's power worked. For example, "Screen brightness" did not/does not respond to adjustments. "Dim screen" and "Screen energy saving" no longer work after their respective minutes.

Since the screen wouldn't go dark, I went ahead and closed the lid. This morning...locked up tighter than Ft Knox yet again! But, as with the previous two days, once it's up and running it's basically working great. Other than the new power/display issue...

So far I have a lot of things working that were giving me problems before, such as KDE Connect, and accessing my other computers over the network. I can read/write/delete on my other computers, and I can send/receive files and pings with KDE C. So guess what I'm going to do? And risk messing everything up? Install Samba! I need to in order to access this computer from my phone and my other computers. That's a critically important issue for me, so I'm going to HAVE TO plunge in and do it at some point. Wish me luck!

[DoYouKubuntu]

If I liked gnome I'd just install Ubuntu.

Yep, me too! But I don't, hence my current predicament.

And whatever happened to Unity? Wasn't GNOME replaced with Unity at some point as Ubuntu's DE? I don't stay up on such stuff as it generally doesn't apply to me, but I'm wondering if user-revolt caused the dumping of Unity in favor of old standby, GNOME.

[SpecialEd]

If I liked gnome I'd just install Ubuntu.

[GreyGeek]

So was my son!

[DoYouKubuntu]

Based on your experience with Pop!_os, GG, I'm glad I neither picked it when ordering nor installed it later!

[GreyGeek]

No, it came with Ubuntu 20.04--which is what I chose when ordering it. If they offered Kubuntu--and, believe me, I've asked!--I'd pick that instead.

I installed Pop!_os in a VM just to check it out. Meh. It was made for newbs and people fresh from Win10. I felt like my hands were tied while using it. Right mouse context menu is sorely lacking. So is customization ... and beauty.

One is presented with the Pop!_os wall paper. The word "Activities" in the upper left end of the "tool bar" (?) and some controls on the right end, which lead to sound, wifi, display and power settings. Clicking the word "Activities" causes a column of icons to be displayed on the left side of the screen, and square set of dots at the bottom. The icons show FireFox, Terminal, File Manager and System. Clicking the dots displays in the center of the screen icons for all the apps installed.

Nothing to write home about. My son was interested in installing it on his gazelle. Even though Kubuntu is giving him full control and capability he thought that perhaps Pop!_os might have something specific to his hardware. After sharing with him my VM experience he said "No thanks".
Now to delete it.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I don't know if anyone's interested, but here's an update:

Yesterday, as noted, I reinstalled...again...and crossed my fingers. As soon as I was logged in, I went through tons of system settings, and disabled many, many things, including cache and cookies. I disabled things that even remotely seemed likely to cause my inexplicable problem. Last night, I put the laptop to bed [closed its lid, which I have set to do nothing], leaving Konsole running a continuous ping test. This morning, nothing but a blank screen; the laptop was locked tighter than Ft Knox! Its backlit keyboard was nicely lit up blue, but that was it. However, since booting up it's been smooth sailing. So that's two whole days in a row that the blankety-blank connectivity problem hasn't happened.

I still haven't done much customization at all; I was about to install QtCurve a minute ago, in Synaptic, and then decided against it. I'm going to try to be patient and see how long this current state lasts, and I want to do that with as little 'extra' stuff as possible. As usual [now], I'm backing up $HOME every so often, so if I need to reinstall I can format /home [or not, depending on mood] without risking losing any of my data.

I'm afraid to say it, because it's way too soon to be sure, but I have a strong feeling that its caching is somehow involved. I guess we'll see!

[DoYouKubuntu]

Since your S76 came with Pop!_os I was wondering if it ran on your S76 box OK?

No, it came with Ubuntu 20.04--which is what I chose when ordering it. If they offered Kubuntu--and, believe me, I've asked!--I'd pick that instead.

[GreyGeek]

Since your S76 came with Pop!_os I was wondering if it ran on your S76 box OK?

[DoYouKubuntu]

Well, folks, I may be about to commit heresy...or whatever using a non-*buntu Linux distro would be.

I'm pretty fed up now. I've reinstalled two more times since my last reply. Yesterday morning and this morning, when I opened the laptop, it was frozen solid at some point during the night [different times, by several hours]. Despite that, yesterday was pretty much issue-free, so I dared to install a few things... One I mentioned, somewhere, although I couldn't think of its name: timeshift. A system snapshot thing using rsync. Blah blah blah... today, after booting up, I fired up my handful of usual apps, including SeaMonkey [which has been ruled out as the culprit], and immediately had that damned 'name resolution failure' and sporadic Internet connectivity. So today, after TWO reinstalls [one failed after choosing a different option from the boot menu: safe mode graphics...something...], I'm close to being done. Either send it back to System76 and let them restore it to its shipping state, then deal with it--either install Kubuntu as I've done for 15 years, or live with Ubuntu.

Or...try a different distro.

It's been a good 5+ years since I last tried Slackware, but I remember really liking it. I know there are many more distributions available now, so I'd have plenty to choose from. I just can't continue using a primary computer that loses its Internet connection randomly [SEEMINGLY randomly], and requires continual reinstalling of the OS. If I wanted an OS whose problems were solved by continually reinstalling the OS, I'd use window$, you know?

Right now, with MANY things disabled, and with almost no customization of my environment, it's running great. But what I've learned is that it won't last. I'll install something, or run something, or change a font setting, or...WHATEVER...and that ridiculous connection problem will rear its ugly head again. I'm out of ideas. If you have any, please let me know. Including suggestions for other distros.

[DoYouKubuntu]

My older System76, the Kudu Pro, ran without issue for 5-1/2 years. A year ago, I upgraded it to 19.10 and it immediately had some issues--but nothing like this! Nothing that borked it. Nothing that required a billion [or even one, IIRC] reinstalls.

This laptop is definitely an anomaly.

One thing no one's mentioned, including me: what if it's just a lemon? They occur, even in the best brands.

I'm on my phone at the moment, so haven't yet checked the laptop. It's been pinging all night. I installed...oh, shoot...I can't recall its name, but it's a system-save thing using rsync to take snapshots per my schedule. So we'll see if that screwed it up!

[GreyGeek]

System 76 must have changed the way the install an OS and software. My son bought a S76 Gazelle about 5 years ago. He's managing a team of programmers and doesn't have time to install or update an OS so I am his IT guy.
I've put Kubuntu on it 5 years ago and have kept Kubuntu on it every since, always using the LTS. I always use the stock install and never "spruce it up". It has not given him one hiccup.

[DoYouKubuntu]

I've thought that, working on similar connectivity problems, and twice been stung by what turned out to be intermittently failing ethernet cables.

Yep, I considered that--that's why I tried two different Ethernet cables and got the same result!

Honestly, this is just so head-scratching...

[DoYouKubuntu]

That's something I am surprised I didn't catch. You probably want System76's video drivers over the ones from Ubuntu anyway, let alone any other drivers they provide via their repo.

No... I can't expect you--or anyone!--to keep this all straight. But at one point along this journey, I did install System76's drivers--and ended up with [yet another] borked laptop! That was the time I ended up with a blaCk [as opposed to blaNk] screen, like the display died...or something...making the laptop absolutely useless.

Switching between different proprietary Nvidia drivers can be annoying or worse

Right. Which is why I figured--after ALL THIS--that choosing not to install third-party drivers couldn't possibly make matters worse. And, so far, it hasn't! I'm humming along today without issues. I'm not convinced of anything yet, but this is a good sign.

Can anyone please point me to where I should store the icons I want to see in my taskbar? For things like volume, battery, KDE Connect, Bluetooth, etc. I strongly dislike the icons I have now, but have yet to figure out where they're stored.

[jlittle]

... HARDWIRED connections were failing,... When the intermittent loss of Internet connectivity started, I grabbed an Ethernet cable and plugged it in, thinking, there!, that'll fix that!

I've thought that, working on similar connectivity problems, and twice been stung by what turned out to be intermittently failing ethernet cables.