<div dir="ltr"><br><div class="gmail_extra"><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jul 25, 2013 at 6:20 AM, Dale Amon <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:amon@vnl.com" target="_blank">amon@vnl.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
I have held back from putting in this report for a very long time<br>
as my experience reading this list has led me to believe that no<br>
one will much care because Granny Would Never Do That and she<br>
certainly Would Never Know How to Do That.<br>
<br>
I have a Thinkpad W520. I have identical second screens, Acer's, at<br>
home and at work. The laptop moves back and forth with me and thus<br>
makes the transition back and forth twice a day. I use Mate for my<br>
work space. I can't stand Unity. Matter of taste and habits. I made<br>
my choice and it was to stay with what for me worked far better.<br>
<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>When I read comments that Unity is not nice, or in your case, "you cannot stand Unity", </div><div>then I feel something is fundamentally wrong. </div><div>I feel that you have been influenced by the anti-Ubuntu/anti-Unity crowd, </div>
<div>and due to this, even if simple tasks somehow fail, you are not versatile enough to adapt and change something.</div><div>I have been using computers for quite some time, and I tried a few graphical environments.</div>
<div>It is doable to switch from one environment to another, as the basic requirement is just to start applications.</div><div>A dislike for Unity is evidence for deeper issues. </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
In order to use the VGA connector, I have the BIOS set to the Discrete<br>
Graphics Mode.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>So you have a laptop with two graphics cards? </div><div>If one card is an NVidia, then you need bumblebee, <a href="http://bumblebee-project.org/">http://bumblebee-project.org/</a></div>
<div>And you may need a recent version in case older versions have some bug. </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
When I boot, one of three things happens:<br>
<br>
* A blue screen of death before even the grub screen appears<br>
* A large blinking cursor at the top left of a black screen<br>
just after the grub screen selection is made.<br>
* A successful boot where the large blinking cursor turns into<br>
a small blinking cursor after some interval and then<br>
it goes to the encryption password screen and the boot<br>
suceeeds from there.<br>
<br>
In neither of the fault cases does the system print any state info<br>
or give me any diagnostics whatever. All of these problems existed with<br>
Oneiric and still existing with Raring.<br>
<br>
That is just one set of problems I include so that one might understand<br>
the further miseries.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Depending on which two graphics cards you have, </div><div>you need a recent X.Org so that both cards are supported. </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
The second issue is that sometimes, on a whim, the screen manager will<br>
get confused. One of these cases happens if I connect the VGA connector<br>
to the closed laptop and fail to open the lid fast enough. In that case<br>
it decides the Acer is screen one and it makes it the primary screen.<br>
Opening the laptop at that point does nothing and the situation deteriorates<br>
from there. If you log out and back in again the screen manager misassigns<br>
things; it will not reset the sizes of either screen and attempts to do<br>
so result in a patchwork quilt on the laptop screen. The Acer screen remains<br>
dark. You cannot get out. A logout hangs even if you can manage it. If you<br>
try F2 to get to VT2, it hangs. Total hang, mouse cursor frozen. You have<br>
no choice but to kill the power.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Here you should mention whether you use the closed-source driver for the discrete graphics card. </div><div>Ideally, a recent X.Org (and xrandr) should be OK.</div>
<div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
Once in this mode you have to find exactly the right sequence of<br>
spells to get it to do things right again. Often this means doing a total<br>
power down, including pulling the battery and shorting out the input pins<br>
to make sure no state is retained.<br>
<br>
The even worse case is the one that catches me out on a regular basis. I<br>
spend nearly as much time in a root virtual terminal as I do in a GUI.<br>
This has been my usual modus operandi for more years than most of you have<br>
been alive. Ain't gonna change and I nearly always forget that doing so<br>
arms a serious time bomb. If, as this evening, I walk of to the kitchen,<br>
get a cookie and something to drink, read an article in a magazine...<br>
when I come back the machine will have gone into a sleep state. If I<br>
were in the GUI, the sleep state would just mean I was in a screen saver.<br>
But if you are in the command line... it is death. You cannot get<br>
control back. The only choice is: kill the power.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>"Root virtual terminal" is what we call the 'emergency console' (Ctrl+Alt+F1)? When X.Org is not running?</div><div>
This should not get stuck unless something goes really wrong on your specific hardware. </div><div> </div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<br>
And that triggers a very bad situation. When you come back up and log<br>
in the GUI is screwed up royally. It has lost the second screen; it<br>
is confused about the resolution of either screen, any attempt to fix<br>
it causes a lock up... and to add insult to injury, it often has scrambled<br>
all the icons on your desktop, thinking it somehow knows better than you<br>
as to where you wanted them. It does not ask. It does not let yet say<br>
no. It just gives you the big one up the wazoo and says "See what I've<br>
done? Ha Ha!"<br>
<br>
Sometimes I can fix this through multiple cycles of total power down;<br>
sometimes I have been able to fix it by logggin in as root with Unity<br>
and using the terminal settings there to fix things ONE STEP AT A TIME.<br>
Turn off "mirror" if it has set it; save the config. Then fix the<br>
resolution for the laptop screen. Save the config. Then set the resolution<br>
for the second screen and save it. Then log out as root, and if I am<br>
lucky, when I log back in as myself, my screens are correct. With my<br>
icons scrambled all over the frigging place, across the boundary<br>
between screens even, but at least I can work again.<br>
<br>
Total elapsed lost time to a typical incident? 1 to 2 hours to<br>
recover.<br>
<br>
I really am seriously annoyed and have been living with this since<br>
April 2012.<br>
<br>
This is not just one bug; I suspect there are quite a few getting<br>
tickled here and they are having a jolly good time at my expense.<br>
<br>
I now await the expected lecture, which I am not interested in, and<br>
perhaps, just perhaps, some kind soul who actually gives a damn about<br>
folk who have been using Linux for decades and expect certain things<br>
out of it.<br><br>
<span class=""><font color="#888888"></font></span></blockquote></div><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">What you are describing are issues specific with your hardware.</div><div class="gmail_extra">Here you need to provide detailed technical details, and the easiest way to do so, is run</div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">ubuntu-bug xorg</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br></div><div class="gmail_extra">which will give you the opportunity to upload technical details to <a href="http://launchpad.net">launchpad.net</a> and assign a bug report number.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra">Then you can send the URL to the bug report here so that we can have a look. </div><div class="gmail_extra">These hardware issues are specific to the individual hardware that each one of us have in their possession.</div>
<div class="gmail_extra">I have such a set up myself, but I do not get what you describe. Thus, your hardware is different from mine (I also am running 13.10-development), and that's most probably the culprit. </div>
<div class="gmail_extra">
<br></div><div class="gmail_extra">Simos</div></div>