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Can anyone offer perspectives on Mint unreliability?
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 11:57 am
by azalea4va
I am running Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca on a Dell system with 16GB of memory (and all partitions ith plenty of free space). When i first started using Mint, I was thrilled with how "professional" the experieince was. But with use, there have been persistent BLATANT failures that seem out-of-place with such a prominent OS. Am I just "unlucky" or is this an issue.
1. About once per week, the system will just start spinning its wheels, becoming unusable. I can here the hard disk cranking away like crazy. I can do a Cntl-Alt-F3 to go to a text screen, then when I try to return to the X screen, I just get black becuase the system is too busy doing something else. The only recourse I have found so far is to go to a text screen and do a Cntl-Alt-Del to reboot.
2. I run Evolution for email. About twice a day, it just freezes. The only colution I have found is to click on killing the window, wait for the application is not responding message to pop-up, click on kill anyway, and restart.
3. About 5% of the time when running Firefox, if I click on a link that takes me to a google map, Firefox crashes. All open firefox windows disappear.
4. I am running using a fixed color Desktop ba0ckground (Picture Aspect: No picture) with a vertical gradient. Something happens and the Desktop background changes to some random image file that is stored on my system. When I re-enter "Chnage Desktop Background", "PictureAspect" has migically been chnaged to Zoom.
Is the Mint experieince normally this unreliable?
Re: Can anyone offer perspectives on Mint unreliability?
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 12:11 pm
by Houchou
I can here the hard disk cranking away like crazy
.
You can check in system monitor which process is doing that.
It could be a driver problem....
I run Evolution for email. About twice a day, it just freezes.
Welllll. You could use an other email client if that's too much of a bug for you. Also, it could be the config folder that got a problem.
this in the terminal will be faster.
killall -9 evolution
About 5% of the time when running Firefox, if I click on a link that takes me to a google map, Firefox crashes.
It could be a faulty extension you know.
Desktop ba0ckground
I'm using KDE....
Is the Mint experieince normally this unreliable?
You are lucky that you didn't have driver problems.
Re: Can anyone offer perspectives on Mint unreliability?
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 12:38 pm
by Rusty1
First, and most importantly you should be sure that your hardware is known to be supported in linux. This can be found by visiting the support websites for the hardware manaufacturers or googleing the components + ubuntu.
Second: Be sure to use the mint update and package managers for package and update managerment. Use of the command line is not necessary.
Third: Addition of third party software , either through ppa's or other sources can introduce instability,
Finally, make sure that the desktop is appropriate for you hardware, Cinnamon is a compositing desktop and requires a fairly powerful GPU to perform well. If your hardware is older it may be better to try the Mate or XFCE versions.
If you would like to post the output of:
from a terminal, we can take a look at your sustem specs and see if something can be suggested to help.
I install Mint on computers all the time and find it as reliable as any OS, when properly configured.
Re: Can anyone offer perspectives on Mint unreliability?
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 5:58 pm
by azalea4va
First: yes, to the best of my knowledge.
Second: Yes.
Third: None
Fourth: I assume the hardware is adeuqate.
Finally:
Code: Select all
System: Host: vision Kernel: 3.13.0-65-generic x86_64 (64 bit, gcc: 4.8.2) Desktop: Gnome Distro: Linux Mint 17.1 Rebecca
Machine: System: Dell product: XPS 8700
Mobo: Dell model: 0KWVT8 version: A00 Bios: Dell version: A01 date: 05/16/2013
CPU: Quad core Intel Core i7-4770 CPU (-HT-MCP-) cache: 8192 KB flags: (lm nx sse sse2 sse3 sse4_1 sse4_2 ssse3 vmx) bmips: 27139.3
Clock Speeds: 1: 800.00 MHz 2: 1900.00 MHz 3: 800.00 MHz 4: 800.00 MHz 5: 800.00 MHz 6: 800.00 MHz 7: 2300.00 MHz 8: 1200.00 MHz
Graphics: Card: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Turks PRO [Radeon HD 7570] bus-ID: 01:00.0
X.Org: 1.15.1 drivers: ati,radeon (unloaded: fbdev,vesa) Resolution: 1680x1050@60.0hz, 1920x1080@60.0hz
GLX Renderer: Gallium 0.4 on AMD TURKS GLX Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.1.3 Direct Rendering: Yes
Audio: Card-1: Intel 8 Series/C220 Series Chipset High Definition Audio Controller driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 00:1b.0
Card-2: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Turks/Whistler HDMI Audio [Radeon HD 6000 Series] driver: snd_hda_intel bus-ID: 01:00.1
Sound: Advanced Linux Sound Architecture ver: k3.13.0-65-generic
Network: Card-1: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter driver: ath9k bus-ID: 04:00.0
IF: wlan0 state: down mac: bc:85:56:31:39:e7
Card-2: Realtek RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller
driver: r8169 ver: 2.3LK-NAPI port: d000 bus-ID: 03:00.0
IF: eth0 state: up speed: 1000 Mbps duplex: full mac: b8:ca:3a:87:35:a5
Card-3: Atheros usb-ID: 0cf3:e004
IF: N/A state: N/A speed: N/A duplex: N/A mac: N/A
Drives: HDD Total Size: 4120.8GB (12.8% used) 1: id: /dev/sda model: WDC_WD1001FALS size: 1000.2GB temp: 39C
2: id: /dev/sdb model: KINGSTON_SV300S3 size: 120.0GB temp: 30C 3: id: /dev/sdc model: WDC_WD3003FZEX size: 3000.6GB temp: 40C
Partition: ID: / size: 16G used: 12G (77%) fs: ext4 ID: /usr size: 16G used: 4.9G (34%) fs: ext4
ID: swap-1 size: 16.85GB used: 0.00GB (0%) fs: swap
RAID: No RAID devices detected - /proc/mdstat and md_mod kernel raid module present
Sensors: System Temperatures: cpu: 29.8C mobo: 27.8C gpu: 55.0
Fan Speeds (in rpm): cpu: N/A
Info: Processes: 242 Uptime: 4 min Memory: 840.5/15984.9MB Runlevel: 2 Gcc sys: 4.8.4 Client: Shell inxi: 1.8.4
Re: Can anyone offer perspectives on Mint unreliability?
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 6:48 pm
by Rusty1
See if in Administration menu, Driver manager, there is an alternative for the graphics chipset.
In Update manager, View install the latest kernel and reboot.
A google search of XPS8700 + ubuntu might also be useful.
Of course, backup your data before performing any changes.
Re: Can anyone offer perspectives on Mint unreliability?
Posted: Sun Nov 01, 2015 7:05 pm
by Houchou
next time it does the thrashing thing, check in system monitor what application is causing the problem. If that is too difficult, you can use top in a tty (ctrl + alt F1 , login, "top")