[Novalug] ubuntu problems - so trying linux mint

Bonnie Dalzell bdalzell@qis.net
Sat Apr 28 19:49:17 EDT 2012


On Sat, 28 Apr 2012, James Ewing Cottrell 3rd wrote:


Thanks for tolerating typos and a message I wrote very late at night.

> On 4/28/2012 12:13 AM, Bonnie Dalzell wrote:
>> I have a old athlon that I built in 2002 so it is long in tooth.
>>
>> I was using xfce desktop with Ubuntu 10.10 but I really disliked
>> gnome 3 so I had not upgraded. I also disliked the disruption that
>> uupgrading caused to my system around half the time when I upgraded.
>>
>> 10.10 is now past its support date.
> Ah, that Mythical Beast...Support. Did you even PAY for Support?

By support date I mean the date that Cannonical will support the 
distribution with the automatically available bug fixes etc that you can 
download - not the sort of support you get by asking for support. They 
want you to upgrade to a later version which would have gnome 3. I am 
sure my ancient machine will choke on gnome 3. I have looked to send 
donations to Cannonical for Ubuntu in the past they only used paypal. I 
will check again because you can now do paypal from your credit card 
without a paypal account. I do not trust paypal since it is not a bank 
and one is not protected by various banking laws when using it.

>
> However, Point Taken....it's OLD.
>> Before that happened however I was having increasing problems with my old
>> system hanging up and having to reboot. Often it came when the browser was
>> running but other times it came when I was running gnomem-commander or
>> other things such as fslint or graphics programs.
> If you have Too Many Tabs or are using Flash, your browser can Eat Your
> Machine.
>

Thanks for that insight. I did manage to freeze things up while using the 
browser last night so it is probably flash and to many tabs open. I will 
check to see if I have the Firefox "Too Many Tabs" app installed. I have 
been using JetEye JetPaks for saving my huge set of links cause it seems 
to store the information on a server rather than in memory.


> You can try Google Chrome to help with that.
>> I ran memcheck and the memory passed with no problems. Still I was getting
>> freeze ups with top showing 100 cpu use before the freezes.
>>
>> I finally got a partition cleaned out for a

I ment new installation - what a weird typo

>>roto installation - on a
>> harddrive and installed the Xfce version of linux mint and I have had no
>> system freeze ups for three days now.
> You could just install Xfce on Ubuntu 10.10 too.

Well I used synaptic to install Xfce but the information on the system 
kept saying I still had a Ubuntu install, not an Xubuntu install and I 
thinking that part of my problem might be some sort of mixed system thing 
that could only be solved with a clean install.

>> I can still boot into the ubuntu installation and after I get everthing
>> working with my mint I am going to go back and try doing an upgrade on the
>> ubuntu side or I might just to an install of Ubuntu Studio (which has the
>> XFCE desktop as default). 12.04 over the old 10.10 system partition. I
>> have different partitions for root, home, var and swap on my first
>> harddrive and then linux mint has the same set of partitions on my second
>> harddtrive.
> You can also just change your /etc/apt.sources file too....just change
> the last field from X-animal to Y-animal...or is it X-adjective to
> Y-adjective.
>

thanks for the suggestion

> Of course, it will take several iterations to do updates without
> conflicts. And you might be better off deleting the Gnome stuff before
> you upgrade.
>> I understand that linux mint has rolling updates so there is no problem of
>> having to do a major upgrade.
> Well, this is supposedly true of Ubuntu and Debian as well,

Not according to everything I have read even at the Ubuntu sote. I have 
used Ubuntu for a number of years through many of its upgrade names and 
around 1/2 the time the attempt to use the built in upgrade function has 
failed and I have had to wipe the system partition and do an new system 
install from a CD. Learning from mistakes I now always download and burn 
a CD or DVD for each generation between my current install and the latest 
one. I have Maverick and they are all the way up to a P release.

>> have any of you used linux mint?
> Yes, several versions. Nice, and well put together. But it's not a Panacea.
>> Of course I should get a different main computer but I like my case with
>> the window in the side and the flashy lights on the fans. Maybe I can just
>> put a new mother board in it.
> Just chop your disk up into several Partitions or LVMs and run different
> a different Linux (or...gasp...even Windows) in each one.

I have the capability for that so perhaps several installations of OS's

but no windows - no no no  X X X X

I actually worked in the same building as Stallman back in the early 
1970's and did participate in discussions about freedom to control one's 
computer tools (as opposed to software not costing anything). However my 
various software experiences are worthy of a separate thread so I will 
not bore people further herein.

Would rather use a MAC

Or as Dan has observed -

One DOS to rule them all, one DOS to find them, 
one DOS to bring them all - and in the Darkness bind them...

Haven't you noticed the little letters in an arcane alphabet,flame visible 
on the inner rim of official windows CD's and DVD's?




>
> JIM
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                        Bonnie Dalzell, MA
mail:PO box 9767 Baldwin, MD, USA 21013  |  EMAIL:bdalzell@qis.net
shipping adddress:5100 Hydes Rd 21082 (Hydes Post Office closed Jan 2012)
Freelance anatomist, vertebrate paleontologist, writer, illustrator, dog
breeder, computer nerd & iconoclast... Borzoi info at www.borzois.com.
HOME www.batw.net    ART bdalzellart.batw.net  BUSINESS www.boardingatwedge.com




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