Last Straw?

[djpemberton]

I have been using Kubuntu for over a year now. I love the possibilities of KDE. I love the ability to tweak so many things out of the box. I love how you can customize your desktop. I love almost everything about it. However, I feel I need something more stable. I've run it on 3 computers now. The instability that I experience is breaking my love for KDE. The plasma desktop crashes a few times a day. Yes, it restores itself in a few seconds, but Come On! I just allowed a normal update which made all of my desktop widgets disappear. There was still a check by them when I went to add them back (They must be somewhere?!), but they cannot be seen. Other things were also messed up with my two monitors after the update -- they were switched. Even after getting them in the right order, my panels were still on the wrong screens. When trying to remedy that, the panel editing mode is so sensitive and buggy that stuff from the panel was distributed (apparently irreversibly) all over the desktop. Oh, and when I try to add a default panel now, plasma crashes, never (apparently) adding the panel. Plasma also crashes when trying to add widgets from the activities dialog on a panel. I know there will be many who may respond with how their KDE desktops run smoothly all the time. I have a hard time believing that. KDE is pretty. KDE has a lot of cool features. KDE just is what I want. KDE, however, isn't stable enough for my daily use. I hope I find a Linux distro that is. Ubuntu? Mint?

Thanks for allowing me to vent!

[tek_heretik]

Uh oh, thanks for the warning, I just got my computer back after a nine months absence, I am actually scared the numerous updates may break my install, but then again, Linux is free and I am glad to be a guinea pig for the cause, lol.

[vw72]

I have been using Kubuntu for over a year now. I love the possibilities of KDE. I love the ability to tweak so many things out of the box. I love how you can customize your desktop. I love almost everything about it. However, I feel I need something more stable. I've run it on 3 computers now. The instability that I experience is breaking my love for KDE. The plasma desktop crashes a few times a day. Yes, it restores itself in a few seconds, but Come On! I just allowed a normal update which made all of my desktop widgets disappear. There was still a check by them when I went to add them back (They must be somewhere?!), but they cannot be seen. Other things were also messed up with my two monitors after the update -- they were switched. Even after getting them in the right order, my panels were still on the wrong screens. When trying to remedy that, the panel editing mode is so sensitive and buggy that stuff from the panel was distributed (apparently irreversibly) all over the desktop. Oh, and when I try to add a default panel now, plasma crashes, never (apparently) adding the panel. Plasma also crashes when trying to add widgets from the activities dialog on a panel. I know there will be many who may respond with how their KDE desktops run smoothly all the time. I have a hard time believing that. KDE is pretty. KDE has a lot of cool features. KDE just is what I want. KDE, however, isn't stable enough for my daily use. I hope I find a Linux distro that is. Ubuntu? Mint?

Thanks for allowing me to vent!

You are correct that there are many that have desktops that run smoothly all the time, however, that is probalby due to their video card. Some work better than others. So, the first set of questions would be what video driver do you have installed and what version of Kubuntu and KDE? Also, if you suspect that you are having video problems, there is a file in your home directory called .xsession-errors that may shed some light on the problem.

I do recall a kernel update a while back that hosed my external monitor connection on the laptop, but reverting back to the old kernel fixed the problem until the next "new" kernel was released. I don't know if that is your problem, though. As for Ubuntu or Mint, as Kubuntu and Mint are all built on the same version of Ubuntu, it is unlikely that if your issue is a kernel/driver problem you will have better results (if it is a kwin problem, you may). You could test that pretty easily by installing ubuntu-desktop on your kubuntu. It will basically give you Ubuntu's Unity and KDE. If running Unity, your problem goes away, then it is probably a KDE specific issue. If it remains, then it won't matter which *buntu you use including Mint.

Again, it would be helpful to know what versions you are running.

vw72

[SteveRiley]

(Moved out of Social/Casual Talk and into Kubuntu Catchall.)

[kubicle]

"Random" plasma crashes should be very rare, there is usually a very specific cause for plasma crashing (the exact reason may be hard to pin point sometimes, though). One possible reason is a widget that is incompatible with a newer version of kde(libs)...a crashing widget commonly takes plasma with it (though plasma should restart, like you described).

I've had one plasma crash in roughly a year (actually there were multiple crashes until I hunted down the cause), and that was caused by smooth-tasks widget I use that was incompatible with a new version of libtaskmanager. A quick rebuild fixed the problem (the smooth-task package in the repos was later rebuilt as well).

When experiencing plasma crashes, one way to start debugging the problem is to make sure you're up-to-date (sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade) and create a new user and try logging into a "default environment". If you don't get crashes with the new user it's fairly safe to assume it's either a config issue with your primary user or a widget you're using.

~/.xsession-errors log might also give clues as to what is causing the crashes.

I don't think your experiences with plasma are the norm, but that of course doesn't help you much...so it's completely fine to use something else if that works out better for you. Although it would be nice to find out what the problem is, as that might help someone else as well.

[blackpaw]

"Random" plasma crashes should be very rare, there is usually a very specific cause for plasma crashing (the exact reason may be hard to pin point sometimes, though). One possible reason is a widget that is incompatible with a newer version of kde(libs)...a crashing widget commonly takes plasma with it (though plasma should restart, like you described).

yeah I'd be blaming widgets.

Painful, but probably best to reset the plasma desktop. I think the following will do this:

- logout
- switch to console and login (Ctl-Alt-F1)
rm .kde/share/config/plasma* 
- reboot

if that doesn't help, reset from scratch, ie

- logout
- switch to console and login (Ctl-Alt-F1)
-- WARNING! Will erase your KDE setup!
rm -rf ~/.kde
- reboot

KDE still does lack tools for cleaning up borked kde configs, whcih can be very painful.

[PaulW2U]

I know there will be many who may respond with how their KDE desktops run smoothly all the time. I have a hard time believing that. KDE is pretty. KDE has a lot of cool features. KDE just is what I want. KDE, however, isn't stable enough for my daily use.

In my two years here I've run every version of Kubuntu since 11.04. I've used four different PCs or laptops and I am happy to say that in the main I've not run across any serious problems. The frequent crashes that I used to get each time I started or closed down have been eliminated and I can go days without needing to restart or reboot. However, one PC that I no longer have would completely freeze when running Kubuntu 13.04 and Kubuntu 13.10 Alpha 1. I had an almost identical installation of Kubuntu 13.04 on a laptop that continues to run faultlessly, I'm using it right now.

I hope I find a Linux distro that is. Ubuntu? Mint?

I switched to Fedora for a week or two and guess what? Same random freezes so a change of distribution did not help. I do admit that the problems may have been related to KDE but not necessarily Kubuntu as I didn't have any such freezes when running Ubuntu, Lubuntu, Xubuntu or Ubuntu Gnome!

However, using each of those revealed problems of a different kind but only on that one PC.

Thanks for allowing me to vent!

This is a good place for that.

[woodsmoke]

My computer runs continually, one side of the turn it off or leave it on debate, I have both "activities" and "desktop" running and several widgets on the desktop and activities at any one time.

I run a plain vanilla AMD dual core 4200 with nvidia 3d cards and a pcie wireless antenna.

wireless mouse and keyboard, of several brands which vary in useage depending upon what I am doing.

The only "problem" that I have seen is the known bug of the kdescrn popups.

It would be informative for those who actually know stuff to be given some small hint about hardware.

just a thought of little worth.

woodsmoke

[verndog]

Hopefully you come back and let us know what hardware you are using. That's the important question.

Mine:
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 Processor × 2
4 gig ram

The important part:
Nvidia GeForce 6150SE nForce 430

Running anything but KDE, no problem. KDE lots of issues on boot up only. Found a workable solution.
Not sure either, why KDE is a problem. As far as the bloat goes, I find KDE to be less bloated as new updates are released.
As far as MintKDE. Its a total failure on my hardware.

[djpemberton]

Sorry. I will reply to requests. I am in school in a foreign country and a bit busy. I'll get back soon.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4 Beta

[tek_heretik]

Update (no pun intended, lol), I did all the updates (9 months worth) and umm, nothing happened, everything is fine, of course I chose and am running 12.04 LTS (12.04.2 now) for a reason, I wanted stability and reliability.

[woodsmoke]

waiting.....waiting......

[djpemberton]

Processor 8x Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3770 CPU @ 3.40GHz
Memory 8142MB
Operating System Kubuntu 13.04
Linux 3.8.0-27-generic (x86_64)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650

I also always keep the system up-to-date.

[Teunis]

My first observation is you allowed 'a small update', this could mean a partial or incomplete update so I strongly suggest you assure the system is fully updated.
The options blackpaw gave are often a very good remedy to get rid of a faulty configuration, you can remove these (3) files straight from Dolphin and then log out and back in so new ones will be recreated.

About your screen / panel problems, do you run the proprietary nVidia driver?
You mentioned:

the panel editing mode is so sensitive and buggy

What do you mean?
When running Twinview (desktop spread over two screens) the preferred screen for the panel is set using the nVidia Server Settings utility and there is nothing sensitive or buggy about it, just put the tick at the screen you want as primary and hit Apply.


Success!

[djpemberton]

Oh, no. By "panel editing mode" I meant the panels at the bottom of my screens (home to the task manager, system tray, etc.). My dual monitor setup actually works very well (There are some things I wish it would do better, but those things aren't solved by moving to another OS.). I occassionally have to quickly reset my screens after an update, but that is relatively minor for me. Yes, I do use the proprietary nVidia driver.

It is when I go into panel settings that things seem so "touchy" (I can't think of a better word for it). It seems very easy to accidentally move something--almost irreversibly. Sometimes things end up on other parts of the screen even. Perhaps I'm just clumsy, but that is usually not an accusation made about me. Also, every time that I push to add widgets from the panel activity chooser, plasma crashes. I can add them, though, from the desktop button in the upper right.

Concerning widgets, I am only using widgets that come standard on Kubuntu (notes, spell checker, dictionary, and folders). I haven't downloaded any others.