Problems in Hoary (was Re: Installation reports)

[Matt Zimmerman]

On Wed, Feb 02, 2005 at 02:43:42PM +0100, Danilo Šegan wrote:

> Today at 7:39, Matt Zimmerman wrote:
> 
> > I can't trash an i386 system at the moment, but I assume others have tried
> > that.  How does it look?
> 
> Do dist-upgrade'd systems count?

They do not count as installation tests, but they are definitely beneficial
to report.  Thanks for documenting yours.

> I'm having problems with the kernel, and it's most likely an upstream bug.
> 
> - 2.6.7 from Warty Live CD works fine, except that udev doesn't want
>   to start (so I force it to start by changing /etc/init.d/udev
>   script), and CD's are not auto-detected  (everything else works,
>   like USB 2.0 and 1.1 usb-storage devices, sound, usb cdc_acm ISDN
>   modem,...); that's the kernel I'm using now 
> 
> - 2.6.8 from Warty installation has a faulty cdc_acm driver, but other
>   than that, it works flawlessly with Hoary

You mean 2.6.8.1 here, right?

> - 2.6.10 (linux-image-2.6.10-2 2.6.10-12 I think was the latest I
>   tried) constantly halts or borks;  on boot-up, cdc_acm device works,
>   but after one connection, it doesn't work anymore; hot-plugging
>   usb-storage devices halts the system (though not always; if I umount
>   the device first, it *sometimes* doesn't halt the system [if I
>   haven't written anything on it; it otherwise halts even on "sync"],
>   and if I plug it back in, it even sometimes re-enables the cdc_acm
>   device);  doing /etc/init.d/hotplug stop also halted the system

When you say "halts", you mean that the system freezes? (rather than a
normal system shutdown which is normally called a "halt")

Please report this bug in Bugzilla (use the 'linux' component) so that it
can be tracked and fixed; if you stay on 2.6.7 you will not be able to
receive security updates or any other fixes.

You can find some hints here:

http://www.ubuntulinux.org/wiki/DebuggingSystemCrash

for how to debug the situation.

> I've tried compiling 2.6.11-rc2 kernel, but since it was my first
> attempt at compiling kernel with 2.6 series, I probably messed
> something up, and keyboard and mouse didn't work in GDM login screen.
> Then I was left without time to dig in further, so I'll see if
> there're some changes in 2.6.11 rc kernels which fix this for me, and
> if so, I'll post them in Bugzilla.

Fabio has discussed the possibility of making a 2.6.11rc kernel available in
universe for users to try.

> Of course, all of this is tightly related to the hardware I'm using.
> This is a Dell Inspiron 1100 laptop, and I can list further details if
> anyone thinks it'll be worthwhile.

Dell laptops seem to have many problems with BIOS compatibility and
functionality.  It would be useful to know if "acpi=off" or "noapic" help at
all.

> I also have some problems with new components in Gnome (i.e. Gnome System
> Tools "network-admin" and new "modem applet" are not working for me, so I
> simply use "pon" and "poff").  I'll try to track that down as well, and
> see if it's upstream problem, or Ubuntu problem.

In either case, please report to Ubuntu bugzilla for tracking.

Thanks!

-- 
 - mdz