9.10 Karmic Koala = Ubuntu's Vista?

[mCion]

I know everybody will hate me for posting this, but nonetheless it's constructive criticism and from my point of view, it's close to the truth.

One year using Ubuntu and I love it. I thought it would just keep on getting better, until I installed Karmic, and everything went downhill.

Why a comparison to Vista?

Vista was released BEFORE it was ready as it should have been, therefore it was very unstable, ate a TON of resources, etc. Sure it **looked** really nice, but it was a piece of junk. Actually it was the disgusting Windows Vista that made me look into Ubuntu (for which I'm thankful). Like me, many people left the windows environment because of the Vista mess.

The problem with Karmic?

Out too soon!(or tried to do too much in little time, since Ubuntu has scheduled releases) Sure, it sounds really nice to have cloud computing integrated with you OS, to have ext4 filesystem set to default, faster boot times, new look, new Ubuntu Software Center, etc etc.
The bottom line, a very unstable incomplete OS. Just look at the forums!, they are full of crashes, no sound, etc.

My example, installed 9.10. I get several "serious kernel problems" but the machine runs. Just a few days in, my once very stable laptop freezes all the time. I dont even remember the last time I manually shut down the computer (ok, maybe I got to do it like 3 times... out of 50).

I've tried everything!, going back to 9.04 with ext4, 9.10 and 9.04 with ext3 and nothing!!. It now freezes all the time. I cant even return to the previous state of my machine before I installed the "Killer Koala".

I can't watch any videos for more than 3 minutes online, besides the completely RANDOM crashes.

I'm one Ubuntu user that is NOT happy with my system like this.

Sometimes it's good to hear the good and the bad. My hope is that in the future Ubuntu will be a stable, reliable system. No one likes to have lots of "cool looking features" if your system crashes often. My other hope is to get my computer working again, how it was before Karmic, but that looks kind of hard right now as I've run out of ideas.

[P4man]

If you're having problems with 9.04 where it worked fine before, I bet you it has nothing to do with Karmic but everything with your machine. You may have bad ram or a dying harddisk, but its impossible that your laptop somehow remembers you once ran Karmic and punishes you for it by freezing in other OSs

Im fine with constructive criticism of Karmic, and much of it is quite warranted but you have a very different problem.

Run memtest, and check your harddisk with a good diagnostics tool to start with.

[mCion]

good point P4man. The only problem is... been there done that.

I've run several hardisk and memory tests, according to all of them it's all fine.

I do appreciate you idea though. any others?

I do not intend to offend with the post, but rather learn from other people's (companies) mistakes and just be a bit more careful. Anyway, there is always the chance that a new system will leave some ppl out. What confuses me is why I can't go back to a stable system as it was before if the memory and hardisk are OK...

[rich97]

Well, I've upgraded and seen 1 or 2 (very) minor problems. But for me this has been the best one I've tried, and I've been using it since Intrepid, hardware worked for me first time, lots of great new features, still perfectly up to speed.

But from what I've seen on these forums lots of people are calling foul. I don't think this was released too early, it's general knowledge that you wait a month or so before upgrading. You watch the same thing will happen with Lucid.

Release early and often is a very good philosophy to take with tech savvy users. (37signals philosophy).

Anyway sorry that you are having problems but if you have formatted and installed 9.04 (which you were previously alright with?) then P4man must be right. I can't think of any other suggestion. Sorry.

[GSF]

i would compare it to windows 7, since my hardware is compatible enough for me to enjoy this version of ubuntu... tbh i think its not really ubuntu i like (i mean choices of pre installed software and theme from developers) but the simplicity of installation, dual boot with other OS'es (if you are not stupid enough to overwrite windows boot loader), and a great software manager (so far..) .. its the first version of linux that makes me almost want to forget windows, and im slowly learning how to customize it to my own needs 100% ...

and to contribute from my part, i just started learning python... who knows

[arnab_das]

it could be ubuntu's vista. but remember what came after vista? windows 7!

i hope 10.04 does to ubuntu what windows 7 did for windows.

[P4man]

Originally Posted by mCion good point P4man. The only problem is... been there done that. I've run several hardisk and memory tests, according to all of them it's all fine. I do appreciate you idea though. any others?

I could be anything.. overheating cpu or videocard, a faulty powersupply, a corrupted bios, a dead motherboard.

If 9.04 was stable and issue free once, and it no longer is after upgrading to karmic and wiping it off again, then the problem is neither karmic nor jaunty. The problem is what its running on: the PC or laptop.

[wilee-nilee]

As far as the 9.04 install I have had a bad install even when it was a good iso and burn, this happened on on a computer that had a pretty old HD.

[meho_r]

Originally Posted by mCion good point P4man. The only problem is... been there done that. I've run several hardisk and memory tests, according to all of them it's all fine. I do appreciate you idea though. any others? I do not intend to offend with the post, but rather learn from other people's (companies) mistakes and just be a bit more careful. Anyway, there is always the chance that a new system will leave some ppl out. What confuses me is why I can't go back to a stable system as it was before if the memory and hardisk are OK...

Have you tried any other distros to see how it will behave? E.g. try Mandriva (which is fresh released) or Fedora or any other. Try doing what you usually do, watch some video and stuff. This way you'll at least get an idea is it up to Karmic/Ubuntu or your machine.

BTW, I had some initial glitches with Karmic (Internet connection, Ubuntu One, broken packages, even a kernel problem when I plugged in an old scanner), but after first update (I think) most went off, and I managed to solve other issues so more-less everything is working fine (I ditched that scanner).

[myromance123]

When you say "going back to 9.04 with ext4, 9.10 and 9.04 with ext3 and nothing!!" do you mean a full reinstall??

Or some other odd unknown method of degrading an upgrade?
As far as I know, you can only 'downgrade' by doing a complete reinstall with the older version you wish to 'downgrade' to.

IF it was a complete reinstall, it might truly be time you bought a new laptop. Things change, laptops die (over time). A fresh complete reinstall will wipe out remains of existing data held on the harddisk unless you tell it not to (did you?).

besides the completely RANDOM crashes.

This sounds like a serious hardware problem, not a software one, since I have experienced this on computers with dead (or in the process of dying) harddisks and overheating (due to dust, old thermal paste or broken cpu fans) processors, regardless of the OS and version.

May I inquire what are your hardware specifications?
Specifically:
1.Processor
2.RAM
3.Graphics card
4.Laptop brand/vendor
5. Year bought.

The only problem I had with the new "Killer Koala" as you put it (I like that LOL), was that (as previous versions have done for me) Ubuntu was not able to accept the binary driver I had installed for Nvidia in 9.04 so when I upgraded I had to manually reinstall the driver through recovery mode since GUI mode had conflicting drivers (or something on that line).

Other than that its all good, but yeah oddly it doesn't feel like "ubuntu" so much anymore... Odd

PS: I dont hate you for posting this. The community is what makes Ubuntu what it is, which is Ubuntu. No hard feelings here