Initial ubuntu impressions and suggestions

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Thu, Oct 28, 2004 at 04:27:58PM -1000, Adam Greenblatt wrote:

> 1) During boot, I get the following error messages:
> 
>   synaptics reset failed
>   synaptics reset failed
>   synaptics reset failed
>   Unable to query Synaptics hardware.
> 
> The Synaptics touchpad on the machine works just fine, as do the
> full-size external keyboard and mouse that are connected via usb.  If
> the error messages are in fact harmless, they should be hidden.

My understanding is that Synaptics touchpads can be used as if they were
normal mice, but you get enhanced functionality with the synaptics-specific
driver.  It sounds like that driver wasn't able to recognize your device.

It may simply be unsupported at this time, though as you noticed, the basic
functionality still works.

> 2) Sound doesn't work.  I know sound works using alsa 1.0.6 on kernel
> 2.4.27 using the snd-es18xx module.  I tried modprobe manually to no
> avail.  If I look through the modprobe -c output, I see the following
> suspicious line:
> 
>   alias pnp:cESS1869dESS1869dESS0006* snd_es18xx
> 
> Here are the contents of /sys/devices/pnp0/00:06/id:
> 
>   CPQb0ac
>   ESS1869
> 
> I'm just guessing, but maybe modprobe is thrown off by the CPQb0ac line
> that precedes the ESS1869 line?

What happens when you run modprobe manually?  Is there any output in dmesg?

> 3) The default X windows resolution was set to 800x600 at 24bpp, which
> looks terrible on the machine's 1024x768 flat panel display.  I
> explicitly selected 1024x768 as the only allowable resolution during
> setup.  Since the hardware can't do 1024x768 at 24bpp, it fell back to
> 800x600 at 24bpp.  Perhaps it should try falling back to the user's
> chosen resolution at lower color depths before it tries lower
> resolutions at the default color depth?  In any case, this was easy for
> me to fix (by changing the DefaultDepth option in the "Screen" section
> of /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 from 24 to 16), but would be frustrating for a
> novice user.

https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2542

> 4) gnome-terminal glitches the display (chops off the top pixel in each
> line of text) when scrolling text from the bottom of the screen upwards.

Interesting.  Could be a problem with the font renderer, but perhaps more
likely in the X driver.  Which driver are you using?

> 5) If I boot Ubuntu, then reboot with 'sudo reboot', the internal fan
> stops working properly and the machine eventually overheats and shuts
> down (gracefully).  Turning the machine off and on again fixes
> everything.

Could be a BIOS bug, not sure.

> 1) During boot, I get the following error messages:
> 
>   PCI: Address space collision on region 7 of bridge 0000:00:1f.0  
> [1000:107f]
> 
>   modprobe: FATAL: error inserting pciehp  
> (/lib/modules/2.6.8.1-3-386/kernel/drivers/pci/hotplug/pciehp.ko):  
> Operation not permitted
> 
>   modprobe: FATAL: error inserting shpchg  
> (/lib/modules/2.6.8.1-3-386/kernel/drivers/pci/hotplug/pciehp.ko):  
> Operation not permitted

Harmless:

https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1869

> 2) This time, X came up with 1024x768 at 24bpp as requested, but at only
> 60Hz.  Again, editing /etc/X11/XF86Config-4 was required to fix the  
> problem;
> something a novice wouldn't be comfortable with.  (In this case, the  
> monitor
> that I was using didn't support DDC, so it was using a generic default
> with a maximum horizontal refresh rate of 48kHz; hence the 60Hz limit at
> 1024x768.  Admittedly, most modern monitors support DDC, so this wouldn't
> be a problem for most users.  Perhaps if a DDC link is not detected, it
> could prompt the user for the info?  That's probably getting too technical
> for your target audience, though...)

If unable to probe, the system falls back to safe defaults, but still
attempts to minimize prompting.  You can run 'dpkg-reconfigure
xserver-xfree86' to get the full barrage of questions.

> 3) A couple of times, the server has scrambled the display (the result
> looks like fine-grained multi-colored static).  CTRL-ALT-Backspace restarts
> the X server and everything is back to normal.  Unfortunately, I can't
> reproduce this reliably.

Which driver?

> 1) sshd was disabled by default.  While I can certainly appreciate the
> need to keep the install as simple, secure and question-free as possible
> (and you've done an execellent job!), maybe one more install question
> might be ok?  (Something like "Do you want to allow other people to
> access this computer via the internet?"  I dunno.)

While those of us who are accustomed to it can't imagine life without it,
most users don't need it.  It's provided on the CD, and within easy reach
for those who look for it.

> 2) I've never used Gnome before, and it has been quite a while since
> I've played with Debian.  But then, most Ubuntu users probably won't be
> familiar with these either: they'll be coming from a Windows or Mac
> background.  Perhaps there could be a "Getting started with Ubuntu"
> document readily viewable from the Applications menu?  It could give
> examples of how to:
> 
>   Share files with Microsoft Windows users.
>   Join a Microsoft workgroup / domain
>   Access files on other Ubuntu machines.
>   Add a new user to this machine.
>   Setup a printer.
>   Install and upgrade software.
>   Add support for additional languages / keyboard layouts to this machine.
>   Change the timezone when travelling
>   Play an .mp3 file
>   Watch a dvd
>   etc., etc.
> 
> The Gnome life-presever icon doesn't really address those issues; it
> seems targeted more towards someone who is looking for more detailed
> info on a specific application in the Gnome suite.

The documentation team is working on things like this; they hang out over on
ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com and in the wiki.

> 4) Maybe some of the housekeeping tasks (like updating the locate
> database, etc.) that are currently handled by cron jobs could be run
> once in the background after the initial install is complete.  That way
> they'd be up to date and ready to go from the start.  The downside, of
> course, is that the machine would appear slow at first.

https://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=1439

> 5) I tried double-clicking on an .mp3 file in nautilus, and it started up
> totem, which in turn failed to play the song with an uninformative message
> of the form: "Totem could not play 'file:///home/...file.mp'.  Failed to
> open; reason unknown."  It logs a more useful error message:
> 
>   ** (totem:7012): WARNING **: don't know how to handle audio/mpeg,  
> mpegversion=(int)1, layer=(int)3
> 
> elsewhere, but I didn't discover that until later.  This all works fine
> with a plain .wav file.  While I understand that licensing issues may
> prevent you from decoding mp3s in the default install, shouldn't it fail
> more gracefully?

Agreed, it should be more helpful.  Please file a bug, component 'totem'.

> 6) I set up these machines with topaz as an nis and nfs server, and the
> other machines as clients.  (That way, students can log into any machine
> with the same userid and password, and have access to all of their
> files.)  The supplied adduser script does the "make -C /var/yp" _before_
> adding the new user, and not afterwards.  So if I do:
> 
>   adduser test1
>   adduser test2
> 
> on topaz, the client machines will only recognize test1, not test2.
> Seems like a bug in /usr/sbin/adduser to me...

If you can verify that this is what is happening, please file a bug.

> 7) I'd never set up nis/nfs before; and it was something of a pain to
> actually get it working.  Do you have an ubuntu-specific tutorial on how
> to do this?  Or should I just write one while I still remember the
> details?

We have relatively little Ubuntu-specific documentation at this point, but
there is a great deal of activity beginning around the documentation team.
Contact ubuntu-doc at lists.ubuntu.com to discuss this.

-- 
 - mdz