Be Wily and Enjoy the Progress of Kubuntu 15.10

[NoWorries]

I am wondering if there is any way to stop kactivitymanagerd from running in the first place as its presence places sever restrictions on using my Laptop.

Finally got it working. What I found was in my home directory I had files

 [FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]~/.config/kactivitymanagerd-pluginsrc
[/COLOR][/FONT] [FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]~/.config/kactivitymanagerdrc
[/COLOR][/FONT] [FONT=monospace][COLOR=#000000]~/.local/share/kactivitymanagerd[/COLOR][/FONT]

I added _bk to the end of all these files and then rebooted. My system made new files for kactivitymanagerdrc and kactivitymanagerd
Now it is working perfectly with NO SIGN of processing by kactivitymanagerd on htop - hallelujah!!

[NoWorries]

I have now got my system working - sort off.

I am still having trouble with kactivitymanagerd stopping the desktop from working. I have my system come up with KSysGuard as this is the only way I can get at kactivitymanagerd to Kill it. Plasmashell this takes several minutes to then settle down and let me have a desktop that is usable.

I am wondering if there is any way to stop kactivitymanagerd from running in the first place as its presence places sever restrictions on using my Laptop.

[NoWorries]

I have not been able to find an ISO since the 12th September that will boot. I keep getting ubiquity crashing, I finally decided to write down the first line of the error, which is

/var/lib/ubiquity/ubiquity/nm.py, line 225, in build-cache devices=self.manager.GetDevices()

I hope I got it right.

I tested the usb on two different systems and the same error was reported. I also used UNetbootin and that gave the same results. I found an ISO for the 8th September and that is currently being installed and configured, ie ubiguity is working on this one.

Has anyone else had problems with the latest ISO's?

[NoWorries]

Thanks for the clarification and I now don't feel so bad about having the "Unsupported updates" selected. I am finding that the pre-release packages still do not like my auxiliary monitor as was the case when I did not have that option selected.

I will see how my system goes when I do a re-install in a day or two as I will have to use this Laptop for both projection and video processing. I attend a "progressive" Christian Church and they have been very impressed with the projections that I do with LibreOffice. Now the MS person who does the video processing for services is away for a couple of months and I am the only person who has the ability to do the video processing. Wily came along just in time for me to be able to do the video processing as I had endless problems with previous versions.

[claydoh]

Note that "unsupported updates" is normally enabled in *bubntu. - this is the so-called "Universe" repo, that contains mainly packages automatically ported from Debian. They are safe as they really are not the sort of packages that mess with your system.

Now, "pre-release updates" is the "-proposed" repo, ands is NOT normally enabled in *buntu. These are things that may need a bit of extra usage testing before moving out into the normal repos.

the pre-release updates are probably where the problems arise, here in testing land. I don't really know why they use pre-release testing repo in a pre-release testing distro version, outside of very quickly checking out a fix to a major problem or something, but there are/were some kubuntu packages in there, specifically kontact/kdepim stuff at some point (I was checking them out ) I guess I can see having kmail stuff ported to Plasma 5 being kept out of the main OS, as we all know how well the pim stuff likes to go boom

[NoWorries]

Maybe 2: Complaints in the Arch testing forums about kactivitymanagerd using a lot of CPU. Workaround is System Settings > Desktop Behavior > Activities, then select "Do not remember" on the Privacy tab. I always turn this off on new installs.

I have now found out why I was having problems. I guess you can't teach an old dog new tricks.



What I had done was enable "Unsupported updates" and these, I am sure, were the source of my problems. So I thought, what the heck, and then enabled the "Pre-release updates". I then got a good insight into all the new packages that we can expect. For example there is Kernel 4.2.0-10, Firefox 40.0.3 and Thunderbird 38.2.0.

I get this system to work by keeping up KSysGuard and when I see "kactivitymanagerd" in the list, I kill it. If it comes back again, I repeat this process. It sometimes takes a couple of seconds for the system to get back to "normal".

I have just been able to complete some video editing with Kdenlive and posted it on YouTube. I hope to also use this system for Skype later today.

I did think that I should install the system again without all the unsupported and pre- release software, but when I tried the installation, it failed because "umbiquity" crashed with the 12th September iso. So I might wait a couple of days before I try this again.

[vinnywright]

booted to 15.10 this afternoon after being in the 14.04 partition for a day or 2 ,,,,, ran off updates

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

128 of them ,,,,,and the wireless is back

enjoying Amarok , firefox , 4 konsoles + yakuake and dolphin on the laptop screen and ProjectM on a HP HD 23" monitor with the HDMI output on the laptop,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,Awesome

VINNY

[mparillo]

however after 119 updates today ,,,,,,,,,,,,my wireless refuses to connect

Same here. My work-around was to remove the old wireless connection and add a new one. Let's hope it survives tonight's shutdown.

[NoWorries]

Thanks for your suggestions but I regret that the change in System Settings did not work. As you say, the problems are related to kactivitymanagerd. I managed to get htop up but couldn't do anything else as the desktop was essentially frozen. I had to write down the top CPU processes which were:

~56% /usr/bin/plasmashell --shut-up
~51% /usr/bin/kactivitymanagerd start-daemon

I certainly hope that this is fixed very soon as I have to use my laptop for video processing. In the meantime I can use my Wife's Laptop which has 14.04 for a Skype session tonight.

[ronw]

I am wondering if anyone else is experiencing this problem with either slow response or totally sluggish and useless?

No problems here after updating Wily VM and Wily installed on a USB3 HDD.

Maybe: I don't use baloo indexing / file search.

Maybe 2: Complaints in the Arch testing forums about kactivitymanagerd using a lot of CPU. Workaround is System Settings > Desktop Behavior > Activities, then select "Do not remember" on the Privacy tab. I always turn this off on new installs.

[NoWorries]

Looks like I am experiencing one step forward and two steps back.

Today there were updates to Libreoffice 5.1 and further updates to Network manager and Plasma 5.4.1. There were many other updates, BUT on reboot these updates ground one of my Wily systems to an almost halt after logging. The other, ie my Laptop, is totally useless. The desktop is there and the temperature is about 60C, and this indicates that something is using CPU cycles big-time. Also, the clock is not advancing.

I hope VINNY is now able to get his wireless connection working. As no two systems are the same, I am wondering if anyone else is experiencing this problem with either slow response or totally sluggish and useless? On the system that is slow, the htop showed this:

[NoWorries]

however after 119 updates today ,,,,,,,,,,,,my wireless refuses to connect



nice that I have a hardwire laying right hear

VINNY

I am assuming that when you click on the connect button it does nothing. I remember having to do wireless connections recently and I fell foul of kwallet which kept getting in the way. I have used the menu option KwalletManager to close it. Since we are exchanging our desktop graphics, my Networks are shown below



I should probably explain my naming convention. The Wireless Network name is "Fawlty Towers" and my Laptop is basil and my wife's laptop is sybil and my sacrificial PC is manuel.

Because I am connected to our NBN and I have an optical fibre outlet on the wall within 40cm of me, I tend to use a cable connection which is much faster than wireless, particularly for transferring data between computers.

[NoWorries]

Yes, it is certainly strange how systems vary. Today I decided to plug-in a lower resolution external monitor and that worked perfectly. I even installed the nvidia-352-updates and that also worked on the lower resolution screen. I went back to my other monitor and that behaved as before, ie blank screen.

I then unplugged the external monitor and my system booted up successfully. I then reverted to the Intel Video card and I also found that by renaming the file ~/.local/share/kscreen to ~/.local/share/kscreen_bk and then rebooting, I was able to get my system working. Even reverting back to the Nvidia card failed with the external monitor. To get my system back I have to delete the latest kscreen file and boot using the Intel card. The kscreen file that works with the Intel card contains the following:

[
    {
        "enabled": true,
        "id": "8ca0ed60ab92e4049ff8a297db2db19d",
        "metadata": {
            "fullname": "xrandr-unknown",
            "name": "LVDS1"
        },
        "mode": {
            "refresh": 60.031196594238281,
            "size": {
                "height": 768,
                "width": 1366
            }
        },
        "pos": {
            "x": 0,
            "y": 0
        },
        "primary": true,
        "rotation": 1
    },
    {
        "enabled": true,
        "id": "6a16726c694a9bef07cf48129699012f",
        "metadata": {
            "fullname": "xrandr-CMC 19\" AD-0",
            "name": "VGA1"
        },
        "mode": {
            "refresh": 60.019741058349609,
            "size": {
                "height": 1024,
                "width": 1280
            }
        },
        "pos": {
            "x": 1366,
            "y": 0
        },
        "primary": false,
        "rotation": 1
    }
]

My impression is that there is a bug in the code that defines the screen settings for the Nvidia driver. When the system fails using the Nvidia driver there is no additional kscreen file formed.

[vinnywright]

strange how 2 people can have such vastly different experiences .

I can plug in an external monitor (HP Flat screen 1920x1080 HDMI) boot up ,,,,login no prob



Nvidia driver ver. 352.30



however after 119 updates today ,,,,,,,,,,,,my wireless refuses to connect



nice that I have a hardwire laying right hear

VINNY

[NoWorries]

I had some video editing to do using Kdenlive and I had installed Vivid on my Laptop. I found that because I had to have a separate sound file and mute the sound form the camera, the image and the sound got progressively out of sync. I spent some time trying to resolve this but was unsuccessful. I then decided to install Wily on my Laptop and this allowed me to finish the job successfully and post the result on Youtube.

I then decided to install the Nvidia drivers. I started with nvidia-352 and that did not work on dual screens but did work on a single screen. I then purged nvidia* and used autoremove to get rid of all no longer needed packages such as dkms. I then tried installing nvidia-346 and that gave the same results. So I followed the same purge procedure.

After doing all of this, I am now using my Intel video card. Now I find that my system will only boot using my Laptop screen. If I plug-in my auxiliary monitor, the login screen appears, but when I enter my password it is rejected and returns to the login prompt. This does not happen when I only use my Laptop screen. I have stopping and starting kwallet and that has not changed the action. I can't help but suspect that this problem is related to kwallet.

Does anyone have a solution to this problem at a time when we are in the middle of upgrading to KDE Plasma 5.4.1?