kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

[jamesa00789]

I installed Kubuntu couple of days ago, I switched from windows vista because i thought kubuntu was more stable and secure and it would just make life a lot easier, but I have to say I am not entirely impressed so far. I'm having the following problems:

• Sometimes will not startup
• Randomly logs me out sometimes, closing down all applications (and un-saved work)
• Themes don't correctly install, I push the install button, they install but don't appear o
  Are these actual known bugs or is it just on my computer? All I really want is an OS that just works, lets me get on and be happy n the list (for backgrounds and slash screens)
• Will not sleep
• Will not hibernate
• Randomly crashes and the screen goes to funny colours
• Moving and resizing the task bar panel causes it to not display correctly
• When clicking on the clock the calender comes out, but as it slides it messes up whatever is behind it until the calender is fully out.
• Generally runs slower than windows vista
• Network manager disables itself when it tries to sleep

Are these actual known bugs or is it just on my computer? All I really want is an OS that just works, lets me get on and be happy

Edit: I have 1GB ram, intel dual core 1.6Ghz, integrated ati radeon graphics, and windows partition has been deleted.

[Fintan]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

This is looking odd.

Seems like a video card issue.

Could you post the exact card you are running?

Open up a terminal (K->system>konsole/terminal) and give the results of:

lspci

I am no expert but that may be helpful in pointing you in the right direction.

[jamesa00789]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

Yes mate, thanks. I have the Radeon 200M series. Its integrated on my laptop, I think its just the standard ATI one for laptops, so it should work?

And I guess that all these things happening shouldn't be then? Thanks for your help.

james@James-Laptop:~$ lspci
00:00.0 Host bridge: ATI Technologies Inc Device 5a31 (rev 01)
00:01.0 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc RS480 PCI Bridge
00:12.0 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 Serial ATA Controller (rev 80)
00:13.0 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.1 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB Host Controller (rev 80)
00:13.2 USB Controller: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 USB2 Host Controller (rev 80)
00:14.0 SMBus: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 SMBus Controller (rev 82)
00:14.1 IDE interface: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 IDE Controller (rev 80)
00:14.2 Audio device: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB4x0 High Definition Audio Controller (rev 01)
00:14.3 ISA bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-ISA Bridge (rev 80)
00:14.4 PCI bridge: ATI Technologies Inc IXP SB400 PCI-PCI Bridge (rev 80)
01:05.0 VGA compatible controller: ATI Technologies Inc RC410 [Radeon Xpress 200M]
09:02.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL-8139/8139C/8139C+ (rev 10)
09:04.0 Network controller: RaLink RT2561/RT61 rev B 802.11g

[Troberg]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

And I guess that all these things happening shouldn't be then?

No, they shouldn't, something's wrong. It should be rock solid, I run Kubuntu on half a dozen machines running 24/7, and the only thing that stops those machines is blackouts and hardware failure.

I'm sure the talented people here can sort it out, there are not many problems which has them stumped.

[Fintan]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

I believe that chip is not 100% 3D compatible.

Try this:
K->system settings->workspace (or similar, mine is in german) and uncheck workspace effects (3D).

See if that helps.

Also you might want to check the bios and see how much ram it is getting

There also seems to be a bug on launchpad but it is being fixed.

[jamesa00789]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

Awesome thanks, will give that a try and will report back.

[madman_page]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

Try this:
K->system settings->workspace (or similar, mine is in german) and uncheck workspace effects (3D).

I think the English version is "Desktop"?

[jamesa00789]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

K->system settings->workspace (or similar, mine is in german) and uncheck workspace effects (3D).

Do you mean "Enable desktop effects"?

[josefko]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

As Fintan suggested, you should try to uncheck "Enable desktop effects" - disable desktop effects.

[Fintan]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

As Fintan suggested, you should try to uncheck "Enable desktop effects" - disable desktop effects.

Yup. As stated, mine is in german

[utkjamie]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

I've been using Kubuntu since Edgy and my experience with Lucid is that it is really buggy. Specifically...

• Even though I've disabled touchpad tapping, Kubuntu reenables it every time I reboot. If I go into the settings for the touchpad, I can see that it is disabled but I have to reenable it and then disable it for Kubuntu to recognize that it is supposed to be disabled.
• Sometimes Kubuntu simply grays out all of the touchpad settings, so I can't access or change anything at all.
• After rebooting, Knetworkmanager gets stuck in "activating..." status and never does anything. If I click the connection, it simply stops and won't even try again. If I run Knetworkmanager from the command line, I see an "unexpected null encountered" error. When I check the password, it is empty and Knetworkmanager won't save the password if I type it in again. The only way to "fix" the problem is to log off (not reboot) and log in again. Then everything seems to work just fine.
• Alt+F2 is quirky. When I press it, I get the run command dialog but if I start typing something, it'll simply freeze up and doing nothing. I usually have to retry it about 3-5 times before I can get what I'm trying for.
• Even though I turned off Desktop Search, Kubuntu loves to run resource-hogging Nepomukservices. I finally just uninstalled a key part of it and now have to deal with an error message every time I reboot, all because Kubuntu refused to respect that I don't want to use the Desktop Search.
• Sometimes images in Firefox appear as solid black boxes.
• Sometimes Firefox gets all distorted, as if my screen were an Etch-a-sketch and someone shook it up when I wasn't looking.
• Sometimes logging off to log back in (see above) just causes everything to freeze up.
• Somehow the Grub2 upgrade during the Lucid upgrade trashed something on my Windows partition, leaving me unable to boot into Windows. I think what happened is that instead of just upgrading, it went ahead and ignored the existing installation and wrote itself to the Windows partition. Real slick. Fortunately, the only thing I ever really use Windows for is syncing my iPod (I have yet to find a suitable Linux replacement), which is once every few months. And, ironically, upgrading Android OS on my mobile phone (the irony being that Android is Linux-based, but my mobile phone provider requires that I use Windows to upgrade it).

And a couple of bugs that pre-date Lucid and still has't been fixed...

• I do not get any type of notification for pending updates. I gave up on this around Jaunty and just wrote a bash script (run by a cron job) to look for pending updates and then send a text message to my mobile phone to let me know when updates are available.
• I run Apache2 on my laptop for web development projects and whenever I reboot and try to access a local webpage, I get a "403 forbidden" error. If I restart Apache2, everything works fine.

I've been a loyal Kubuntu user for over 3 years now and I've felt like some of the releases (i.e. Jaunty, Lucid) were rushed and incomplete. There was a bug in Jaunty, I believe, that would cause complete and total system freezes. Combine that with the delayed disk writing of Ext4 and I ended up with hundreds of megs of lost data as a result. It took months for that bug to be fixed. I'm so frustrated with the bugs I listed above that I'm ready to dump Kubuntu entirely and either go with Ubuntu or switch to Debian.

[oshunluvr]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

Wow dude, you've got issues!

Seriously, have you tried addressing these problems one by one?

I've been using Kubuntu since Edgy and my experience with Lucid is that it is really buggy. Specifically...

I've only been since Jaunty and I've found Karmic to be totally solid, Lucid at release was really "buggy" for me but I've worked out most of my issues.

Even though I've disabled touchpad tapping, Kubuntu reenables it every time I reboot. If I go into the settings for the touchpad, I can see that it is disabled but I have to reenable it and then disable it for Kubuntu to recognize that it is supposed to be disabled.
Sometimes Kubuntu simply grays out all of the touchpad settings, so I can't access or change anything at all.

can't comment here 'cuse my touchpad has an on/off switch.

After rebooting, Knetworkmanager gets stuck in "activating..." status and never does anything. If I click the connection, it simply stops and won't even try again. If I run Knetworkmanager from the command line, I see an "unexpected null encountered" error. When I check the password, it is empty and Knetworkmanager won't save the password if I type it in again. The only way to "fix" the problem is to log off (not reboot) and log in again. Then everything seems to work just fine.

knetworkmanager is the most worthless piece of garbage in KDE4 IMO. I don't think this is restricted to Kubuntu - I'll post over at Arch and see what they think. Second runner up in the garbage category is kpackagekit which is too bad because I really liked kpackage in KDE3. If you're using wireless, check into wicd. If you're wired only - remove that POS and configure your ethernet ports by hand - takes 2 minutes and never mucks up after.

Alt+F2 is quirky. When I press it, I get the run command dialog but if I start typing something, it'll simply freeze up and doing nothing. I usually have to retry it about 3-5 times before I can get what I'm trying for.

Ditto here, but I don't really use it much anyway. Mine usually just crashes/disappears.

Even though I turned off Desktop Search, Kubuntu loves to run resource-hogging Nepomukservices. I finally just uninstalled a key part of it and now have to deal with an error message every time I reboot, all because Kubuntu refused to respect that I don't want to use the Desktop Search.

I removed the whole friggin' thing and get no errors. Likely yours is still trying to start the daemon. Try removing the nepomuk and strigi-daemon.

Sometimes images in Firefox appear as solid black boxes.
Sometimes Firefox gets all distorted, as if my screen were an Etch-a-sketch and someone shook it up when I wasn't looking.

This is a weird one. Done any searching to find a cause?

Sometimes logging off to log back in (see above) just causes everything to freeze up.

I've run into the black screen after logoff issue on one system, but not others. Could be kdm related.

Somehow the Grub2 upgrade during the Lucid upgrade trashed something on my Windows partition, leaving me unable to boot into Windows. I think what happened is that instead of just upgrading, it went ahead and ignored the existing installation and wrote itself to the Windows partition. Real slick.

I've played with grub2 aka grub-pc quite a bit and never had it run amok with my hard drive partitions. The only thing I can think of is it was installed to the partition instead of the MBR. If this is the case you can fix the windows install by restoring your windows MBR and then re-installing grub-pc (see next comment )

Fortunately, the only thing I ever really use Windows for is syncing my iPod (I have yet to find a suitable Linux replacement), which is once every few months. And, ironically, upgrading Android OS on my mobile phone (the irony being that Android is Linux-based, but my mobile phone provider requires that I use Windows to upgrade it).

Have you tried doing these things from a virtual machine instead of dual-booting? I used to use a windows VM in VirtualBox to update my Harmony Remote. And I love the irony of a linux provider forcing you to use Windows. Sort of begs a sarcastic phone calls to customer support, doesn't it?

And a couple of bugs that pre-date Lucid and still has't been fixed...

• I do not get any type of notification for pending updates. I gave up on this around Jaunty and just wrote a bash script (run by a cron job) to look for pending updates and then send a text message to my mobile phone to let me know when updates are available.
• I run Apache2 on my laptop for web development projects and whenever I reboot and try to access a local webpage, I get a "403 forbidden" error. If I restart Apache2, everything works fine.

All my systems and installs the update notification works fine. I only use apache on my server and it's not running (K)Ubuntu at the mo'.

I've been a loyal Kubuntu user for over 3 years now and I've felt like some of the releases (i.e. Jaunty, Lucid) were rushed and incomplete. There was a bug in Jaunty, I believe, that would cause complete and total system freezes. Combine that with the delayed disk writing of Ext4 and I ended up with hundreds of megs of lost data as a result. It took months for that bug to be fixed. I'm so frustrated with the bugs I listed above that I'm ready to dump Kubuntu entirely and either go with Ubuntu or switch to Debian.

Ubuntu? - Don't go to the "Gnome" side! Seriously, If you're that frustrated Debian would likely be more stable, but so would any distro that rarely updates. IMO, Kubuntu devs try to stay closer to the cutting edge than most and are starting with a product that is gnome centric (I can't imagine why anyone who didn't like the dumbness of windows would use the one desktop that is almost as dumb) and is tied to someone else's schedules - Ubuntu's. No doubt this leads to forced releases and occasional problems. I've found the solutions to most of my issues and if I couldn't, I would likely be using a different distro.

[TheBigAmbulance]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

I think that 10.04 and the new look of Kubuntu has HUGE potential. But I'm 1 for 3 on it running on any systems because of nvidia driver issues.

I will wait a couple months so that kernel and things stabalize. I might try again, or wait 10.10.

[GreyGeek]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

Out of curiosity, how does a Kubuntu 10.4 LiveCD behave on your machine when you run it for several hours?

I installed Kubuntu 10.4 from a validated ISO and CD and it has been rock solid stable for me on this Sony VIAO VGN-FW140E notebook. I turned off the touchpad using a script:

#!/bin/bash
# toggle synaptic touchpad on/off

# get current state
SYNSTATE=$(synclient -l | grep TouchpadOff | awk '{ print $3 }')

# change to other state
if [ $SYNSTATE = 0 ]; then
synclient touchpadoff=1
elif [ $SYNSTATE = 1 ]; then
synclient touchpadoff=0
else
echo "Couldn't get touchpad status from synclient"
exit 1
fi
exit 0

which I saved in my home account directory and execute using the "Auto-execute" feature in Systemsettings.

There are annoyances with specific applications but nothing affecting the overall behavior and performance of KLL.

IMO, your troubles appear to be a combination of hardware problems and/or incompatibilities with Kubuntu. Sadly, some folks can't run KLL.

[dibl]

Re: kubuntu 10.04 is really buggy?

I've been using Kubuntu since Edgy and my experience with Lucid is that it is really buggy.

Wow, this is quite a list of issues! I know better than to respond with an assertion that every one of them isn't a valid bug (arguing online is totally a waste of my time), but here are some thoughts that might, or might not, have merit:

Specifically...

• Even though I've disabled touchpad tapping, Kubuntu reenables it every time I reboot. If I go into the settings for the touchpad, I can see that it is disabled but I have to reenable it and then disable it for Kubuntu to recognize that it is supposed to be disabled.
• Sometimes Kubuntu simply grays out all of the touchpad settings, so I can't access or change anything at all.

I wonder what would happen if the touchpad were disabled by root? Maybe Alt-F2 "kdesudo dbus-launch systemsettings" and then turn it off, working with root privileges?

• After rebooting, Knetworkmanager gets stuck in "activating..." status and never does anything. If I click the connection, it simply stops and won't even try again. If I run Knetworkmanager from the command line, I see an "unexpected null encountered" error. When I check the password, it is empty and Knetworkmanager won't save the password if I type it in again. The only way to "fix" the problem is to log off (not reboot) and log in again. Then everything seems to work just fine.

Congratulations! You are the 1,000,000th person to discover that knetworkmanager is a piece of crap. (GreyGeek was #999,999 )

Just do like everyone else, rip out knetworkmanager, and use wicd.

• Alt+F2 is quirky. When I press it, I get the run command dialog but if I start typing something, it'll simply freeze up and doing nothing. I usually have to retry it about 3-5 times before I can get what I'm trying for.

Dunno -- I've never seen this on any of my KDE4 desktops. I'd be curious as to which commands you're entering there --

• Even though I turned off Desktop Search, Kubuntu loves to run resource-hogging Nepomukservices. I finally just uninstalled a key part of it and now have to deal with an error message every time I reboot, all because Kubuntu refused to respect that I don't want to use the Desktop Search.

Totally agree with the problem, but all you have to do is go into "services" and tell it not to start nepomuk and strigi daemon. One time should do it forever (I've done it once for every new installation since strigi was first deployed.)

• Sometimes images in Firefox appear as solid black boxes.
• Sometimes Firefox gets all distorted, as if my screen were an Etch-a-sketch and someone shook it up when I wasn't looking.
• Sometimes logging off to log back in (see above) just causes everything to freeze up.

I would suspect a video or graphics driver issue with all three of these. I don't know your hardware and wouldn't know where to start, but stuff like "shared video RAM" and the many options for Intel GPUs would be a place to start, if it's an Intel GPU.

• Somehow the Grub2 upgrade during the Lucid upgrade trashed something on my Windows partition, leaving me unable to boot into Windows. I think what happened is that instead of just upgrading, it went ahead and ignored the existing installation and wrote itself to the Windows partition. Real slick. Fortunately, the only thing I ever really use Windows for is syncing my iPod (I have yet to find a suitable Linux replacement), which is once every few months. And, ironically, upgrading Android OS on my mobile phone (the irony being that Android is Linux-based, but my mobile phone provider requires that I use Windows to upgrade it).

If Grub was written to the MBR of the hard drive, where you previously had a Windows bootloader, then it wasn't an accident -- there's an option at the end of the *buntu installer to choose a partition rather than the MBR, and you didn't do that. However, what I would advise is to install Windows on a VM, and use it that way, unless you need it for gaming or something a lot trickier than syncing and upgrading your iPod. Running it on a VM you can (a) skip the worries about viruses and malware doing any harm to your system, and (b) put an end to Grub issues related to dual-booting.

And a couple of bugs that pre-date Lucid and still has't been fixed...

• I do not get any type of notification for pending updates. I gave up on this around Jaunty and just wrote a bash script (run by a cron job) to look for pending updates and then send a text message to my mobile phone to let me know when updates are available.

Here's an alternative theory for you: "apt-get remains the same bullet-proof package management tool that it always was, reliably pulling in all applicable updates every damned time you run it."

• I run Apache2 on my laptop for web development projects and whenever I reboot and try to access a local webpage, I get a "403 forbidden" error. If I restart Apache2, everything works fine.

I have no idea .... may or may not even be a *buntu issue.


In conclusion:

I'm so frustrated with the bugs I listed above that I'm ready to dump Kubuntu entirely and either go with Ubuntu or switch to Debian.

Well, Debian Stable would not be a crazy choice for a person who is sensitive to actual bugs, perceived bugs, or just unexpected changes in the way the system works -- you might be happier with it, to be honest. Nice thing about Linux -- zillions of choices.