Tag: Open Source

Categories
Technology

On a wing and a Prayer one RAM module…

I had a really bad time yesterday. Today was our computer science Monday test at school (I definitely screwed up, as usual), for which I was preparing yesterday. Rather, I was gonna upload the assignment solutions for the chapter on pointers in C++. That’s when my nightmare started…

I was just going to post on Blogger.com when Firefox crashed, a strange thing to happen on Linux. I started Firefox again, and chose to restore my session. Another crash within 15 seconds. I tried to restore session again…and get this, my OS, yes, Linux, hung. Now that’s a very very rare event indeed – even if an application hangs on Linux (which again is rare), then you still have control over your desktop environment to use the system monitor to kill the process in a jiffy. In my case, it was total – no response from keyboard OR the mouse. And then, my desktop started going bonkers – some of the icons started changing to a different theme, while the others stayed in the default; half of my panel was in one theme, and the other half in something else. With no sign if recovery, I hit the power button.

Now I’ve done unclean shut-downs like this so MANY times using Linux – multiple distros too (including Freespire, Fedora, RHEL, SuSe, Ubuntu etc), and never had an issue. Next boot up the OS always checks for errors and never an issue. This time, it was not gonna be the case.

When I’d hit the power button, then reset, my system hung at the BIOS screen for about a minute, which it never does. I hit reset again, and this time it went on till the Grub boot loader, took a long time to load, and then Ubuntu started its recovery procedure. It immediately hit a brick wall and ran into a stream of errors, and got stuck at one point. I let it be for about 42 seconds, and hit reset again.

This time, it didn’t even boot! The CPU was getting power, but no sign of any booting! I opened my cabinet, checked the connections – everything secured – reset the CMOS, even gave the bloody thing a shaken-not-stirred martini. Still, no boot up. At this point, I was really paranoid of something really really nasty having happened to my computer. The thought of NOT being able to use it for at least a few days? Brrr, scary! As Vivek said, “This is the place where all Code Warriors’ expertise ends, and the guys at Nehru Place come in.”

Fast forward to the next day. I’ve a bad experience to tell about HCL’s service, but I’ll keep that in a separate post. For now, it’ll suffice to know that I got really irritated after coming from school on Monday and started doing random stuff. At one point, I pulled out one of my RAM modules. I have two 256 MB RAM modules. And voila! When I tried to boot one of those less, it worked! I checked my BIOS setup for anything wrong, and then proceeded. Ubuntu did the system check and proceeded as usual. I then tried out various combos of swapping and leaving the RAM modules inside to see, and I definitely say one of them’s gone to that place up in the sky where retired computer components live.

The net result is that my system works now, albeit it’s a bit slower. I’m also guessing there’s some problem with my other RAM module, because instead of showing 256 MB which it used to earlier, it’s showing 180 MB now. I still have to rant about HCL, but that’s in the next post because I’ve to write quite some stuff.

Categories
Reviews Technology

Kubuntu / Ubuntu = Trouble?

My recent post Kubuntu Sucks got some attention it seems, that someone from the Kubuntu team responded to it. Here’s what he said:

It sounds like you didn’t have internet access during install so you will need to enable internet repositories in the package manager. This is exactly the same in Ubuntu and Kubuntu.
Amarok does have codec installation, unfortunately Kaffeine video player does not.
Since you seem to have ended up with a Kubuntu system your headline seems a bit exaggerated.

Jonathan Riddell, Kubuntu

Now there are a few things I’d like to say in response to this. I also have some more stuff as far as the performance of Kubuntu / Ubuntu 7.04 is concerned.

  • I was connected to the Internet when trying to download the codecs. Maybe the OS wasn’t able to detect that. It was showing the some of the packages accessible from Internet repositories, but they were all grayed out.
  • I hadn’t tried to play an MP3 file, so if I concluded that Amarok doesn’t support automatic codec download prompt, apologies. However, Kaffeine certainly doesn’t, because I checked that because it didn’t prompt a download for some video files I tried to play.
  • Kubuntu site lacks documentation which could be called at par with the excellent support Ubuntu has. Kubuntu 7.04 doesn’t have anything yet on the official site, which is surprising because Ubuntu is known for its good support. This shouldn’t be the case when Kubuntu has ShipIt because newbies might want it.
  • Coming to other stuff, Ubuntu had problems in network connectivity after install. Kubuntu had chosen to use DHCP, as is usual. I’d gone in for manual configuration, and the changes were effected immediately. However, with Ubuntu after manual configuration it claimed that the changes were implemented immediately, but I needed a system reboot for it work properly. Minor thing, might have thrown newbies into panic.
  • Something is seriously wrong with Gstreamer. I installed all Gstreamer packages; and MOV, 3GP, MP4 and AVI files are having some major issues playing. Some MOV files play, but some give ‘Failed to decode JPEG image’ error before exiting playback. On 3GP videos there is no audio. Ditto for MP4. AVIs generally don’t playback properly – all I can see is diagonal jagged lines for video while the audio is playing back – while on some other AVIs both audio and video get decoded properly, but there is no color. Color reproduction is another major issue because most videos have totally faded out colors, or green lines and blobs floating around in the media player window. Uninstalling, and then reinstalling Gstreamer didn’t help. I was pretty surprised because so far, I’ve never had a problem with Gstreamer on other distros like Fedora, Mandriva, SuSe, Freespire, RHEL, Gentoo or even older versions of Ubuntu.
  • Also, audio quality in videos is an issue. It plays audio files fine, but when it comes to videos it’s a different issue altogether. With all output settings at max (from the mixer, the player, and my headphones) at times the audio is simply too faint – on videos that I know are ok because I’ve played them elsewhere and on other distros earlier.
  • I hate the fact that GNOME doesn’t allow me to replace the double-click with a single-click like KDE does from its menus.
  • Leave Ubuntu with Sticky Keys enabled, do nothing and just leave your computer alone for some time. You’ll soon get a popup asking whether you want to disable it. Note that I did NOT have ‘Disable if two keys pressed together enabled’.
  • Some problem with the India servers for Ubuntu Synaptic? It chose to use the India servers for it’s package handling, and while updating the list of packages I noticed that it gave a ‘Failed’ status for some of the files. Switching to the main server solves the problem.
  • Why on earth shouldn’t the migration manager allow me to shift stuff while install from Linux is something I can’t figure out. Cool, they’ve eased transition from Windows, but why not allow Linux users to use it too?
  • CNR does seem to be the way forward as far as easier software install is concerned. Like Prashanth said ‘CNR is trying to be the Download.com of the Linux software’. I think a place where you can browse longer software descriptions, view screenshots, read reviews, navigate faster with the help of subcategorization is definitely better than what Linux has been using till now. Hold on for CNR’s public launch soon.
  • Maybe be we can also learn a lesson from the Adobe Flash Player 9 installer. It’s terminal-based, but I think even newbies shouldn’t have a problem.