As linux GUI advances it gets more like XP every day

[OoooMatron]

I am finding that, as time goes on, my Gnome desktop is becoming more prone to crashes, hang ups and general faults. It feels like it gets more like XP desktop with its irritating problems.

Here are some examples of daily frustrations for me :

Nautilus hanging up all the time over SSH
GEdit editing files over SSH - can hang up or just ends up in a constant CPU hogging loop opening reasonable sized files

X restarting when it gets huffy. Try opening a 150mb PSD file in the gimp. There's no reason it shouldn't but it causes X to restart losing all the desktop work I was doing

Firefox flash - still buggy as ever. Viewing youtube videos has about an 80% success rate without crashing firefox.

Totem player - works generally well but can get its knickers in a twist streaming mp3 playlists from one server to another.

These are just small examples off the top of my head but every day common occurrences for me. The saving grace is usually killing a task really does KILL a task. Not like XP :lolflag:

I am not sure where the faults lie, either with poorly programmed software not handling exceptions very well or something else.

What other daily knarks do other people have?

[LaRoza]

I don't have any problems. Perhaps it is a hardware issue?

I don't run Fx, so I don't have to cope with that.

[Lord Illidan]

Well, in defense of the Linux GUI, I'd say that the problems with Flash are also due to Adobe themselves for releasing buggy, bloated players.

[hyper_ch]

Nautilus hanging up all the time over SSH
GEdit editing files over SSH - can hang up or just ends up in a constant CPU hogging loop opening reasonable sized files
Tried sshfs?

[wPwLUi3N]

I dont know why it is crashing for you. It crashed not even once for me.

[phenest]

I haven't experienced any of those problems in Ubuntu or XP.

[23meg]

Use the force.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs

[Perfect Storm]

Well, in defense of the Linux GUI, I'd say that the problems with Flash are also due to Adobe themselves for releasing buggy, bloated players.

What the Lord himself said.

I would also say that it might be a hardware issue or failure. Also have you installed something alpha/beta/unstable that could make your System unstable?

I have infact the oposite experience - more stable than the earlier release.

[PartisanEntity]

I am finding that, as time goes on, my Gnome desktop is becoming more prone to crashes, hang ups and general faults. It feels like it gets more like XP desktop with its irritating problems.

Nope sorry, I disagree. I do not have the problems you mention. It seems to be unique to your set-up/hardware/usage.

[wPwLUi3N]

Ubuntu nver crashed from even once.

[stefangr1]

Well, in defense of the Linux GUI, I'd say that the problems with Flash are also due to Adobe themselves for releasing buggy, bloated players.

These kind of problems (just like bad or nonexisting drivers) can be, even when I would not blame Ubuntu for it, very annoying. I also have firefox crash with youtube (10-20% chance), and I really hate it when that happens when I'm watching with someone that is new to linux. Off course I am telling everyone how great Ubuntu is, and then it gives a them really bad impression (and I have to come up with excuses like, "well, it's definately the youtube site having some kind or problem"). Also , just to give another example, after a recent upgrade of Amarok, it crashed xorg everytime I started it.

I agree with the poster that things like that are really sad, and after using Ubuntu for almost 2 years now, I also get the impression that it is in fact, less stable than windows xp when you look to other points than random crashes.

I love Ubuntu for what it is, and I have never considered switching back to windows after I tasted it. Also, now that I'm getting a little more experienced problems are usually easy solved. I love the command line, the configurability and 'completeness', it's relaxing safety, the way things just work (after you've got them to work), and many many more things. But sometimes... ...

[macogw]

I'm assuming you're using a stable release, because if you were beta testing you wouldn't find this unusual. Except I'm beta testing, and I don't have any of those issues.

[DMcA]

I have noticed the issue with viewing youtube videos crashing firefox. Hasn't happened to me for a while, maybe it's been sorted, maybe it's because I'm not using the same graphics card driver, maybe it's because I don't view youtube videos very much.

I have no idea how I'm watching flash stuff though. Took about two hours of swearing and yelling to get it to work in the first place and it's probably adobe's fault. By the way, what graphics card do you have?

[smoker]

have you done a memory check lately? failing ram can cause some of these problems, as can other hardware faults. i would also check out if the power supply is being strained to the limit,

apart from the firefox issue, i have never had any problems (fingers-crossed)

[stefangr1]

I'm assuming you're using a stable release, because if you were beta testing you wouldn't find this unusual. Except I'm beta testing, and I don't have any of those issues.

That's correct, I use 7.10, I upgraded to it (fresh reinstall) 3 months ago. Since then I had two major issues. After installing nvidia drivers I ended up in console (API mismatch), I solved that in less then 5 minutes so no big deal (a total newbee however, might end up doing a complete install), and then I had this Amarok (which I use a LOT) upgrade crashing xorg, which cost an hour or so to solve. Not things I really worry about, but nevertheless, they happened!

About flash; I thought that everybody had that crashing now and then, but if thats not the case: should I maybe reinstall firefox and flash?

[Lord Illidan]

I never had that Amarok upgrade affecting Xorg, but then I haven't used Ubuntu for a few months now.

What I do agree though, is that updates are not being tested thoroughly enough, a very distressing situation, especially since Ubuntu has a very high percentage of people who are newcomers to Linux, and wouldn't know how to get out of a difficult situation.

[macogw]

That's correct, I use 7.10, I upgraded to it (fresh reinstall) 3 months ago. Since then I had two major issues. After installing nvidia drivers I ended up in console (API mismatch), I solved that in less then 5 minutes so no big deal (a total newbee however, might end up doing a complete install), and then I had this Amarok (which I use a LOT) upgrade crashing xorg, which cost an hour or so to solve. Not things I really worry about, but nevertheless, they happened!

About flash; I thought that everybody had that crashing now and then, but if thats not the case: should I maybe reinstall firefox and flash?
Everyone else seems to say Flash crashes Firefox. Flash hasn't crashed Firefox for me in over a year. The last couple times it happened were on my cousin's webpage that is done *entirely* in Flash and has religious & political viewpoints totally opposite of mine. I think Flash simply agreed with me in the case of that website :biggrin:

Perhaps Nvidia restricted drivers & Flash don't play nicely together? That could explain why so many people have issues with it and I don't.

[23meg]

What I do agree though, is that updates are not being tested thoroughly enough, a very distressing situation, especially since Ubuntu has a very high percentage of people who are newcomers to Linux, and wouldn't know how to get out of a difficult situation.

Everyone can help with testing updates. Just enable the proposed updates in Software Sources, and post feedback to the relevant SRU (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates) bug.

[st0n3cutt3r]

Have you tried reinstalling? yeah, it can be a pain, but if you're having crashes like that, you've screwed something up that a fresh start should help.

I never have any of the problems you've mentioned, and I run Ubuntu on 4 different machines. (a G3 iMac, a mediocre DELL laptop from about 3.5 yrs ago, a slightly faster desktop running compiz+beryl, and in a virtual machine through vista, emulating a computer old enough for win 95 to find drivers)

If you haven't tried reinstalling, download a fresh iso (perhaps an alternate), burn it, install, then come back and let us know how it's going.

[dark_harmonics]

I have had some of the experiences of the op. I have been using ubuntu as my primary OS at work and at home and i think i know where alot of these problems come from. If i turn off compiz fusion desktop effects, i can run my linux desktop with twice the speed, and absolutely zero failures. After experiencing compiz though, i just cant live without it! I suffer the consequences of the instability of that window manager. Its just so awesome, I am willing to deal with an occasional lock up. Hmm maybe constantly rendering my desktop with 3D effects could have something to do with the instability!?!?

Of course, this is mostly on my hacked up macbook pro running ubuntu 64 (nvidia based santa rosa) and virtualbox. I am running so many programs at once at work, and most days i have ZERO issues. Its still not as bad as my XP system was. Actually my virtual XP works rather flawlessly as a companion to my awesome ubuntu base OS.

[SupaSonic]

I've had many of the same problems on feisty and gutsy. I upgraded to hardy removing all of my gnome settings, and most of them are gone. There is the random sound problem though - random meaning you never know if you're gonna get sound or not. PulseAudio sucks.

[OoooMatron]

Thanks for the comments.

I run Ubuntu on 3 totally different hardware platforms and always experience similar issues across the board.

I run Gutsy and have a very minimal setup. I don't run the 3d effects and as a programmer and developer I tend to use a lot of gedit and SSH.

My work PC is a bit worse than my home computer, admittedly, but I find that after a period of time there is always something!

Like on my laptop, it takes a lot longer from the login prompt to reach the desktop even though no extra services are running.

I also run Debian (no gui) for my webservers and it's faultless so I am certain that the faults like with the gui or software designed to use it.

It's not unbearable, the problems are occasional and more noticeable at work because I use the computer 8 hours a day. I consider myself lucky to have the kind of job that allows me to run Linux and Virtual Box with XP inside for VB Net development :lolflag:

The reason I am a bit fed up is because I truthfully had less issues with XP when it comes to this stuff other than the dreaded explorer.exe process hanging up. We rant and rave about Ubuntu and in many ways I find it more comfortable and better to work in but the stability is over-rated , in my experience and opinion.

I am pretty computer savvy, I had XP tweaked and minimalised so i never had many problems with it. The main reason I switched to Linux was to go Open Source and start supporting the free computing movement, which is the most exciting thing I've done in years in terms of computing.

[Wobedraggled]

I have had pretty close to 0 issues, outside flash crashing on firefox 3 but that's beta.

I have all the fancy compiz stuff going on, shut it down when gaming.

[Polygon]

ive had x restart on me a couple times, but i wasnt doing anything in particular and there is nothing in the xorg.log file....so i dunno

[Lord Illidan]

Everyone can help with testing updates. Just enable the proposed updates in Software Sources, and post feedback to the relevant SRU (https://wiki.ubuntu.com/StableReleaseUpdates) bug.

That's true, and I'd do it if I'm still using Ubuntu, yet you still get occasions when an upgrade is released and a huge number of computers are disabled thanks to it. If it was the case with Windows, we'd be up in arms.

[Sporkman]

Firefox flash - still buggy as ever. Viewing youtube videos has about an 80% success rate without crashing firefox.


Same here.

Also, viewing pics in nautilus really cranks up the CPU usage & everything slows down.

[mrgnash]

I don't have any 'daily knarks', and that's despite running alpha (now beta) software.

[chucky chuckaluck]

i've been steadily reducing the number of gui apps i use and am now down to just three (opera, gimp and gcolor2). the more i use terminal apps, the less trouble i have (only mpd gets a little goofy sometimes). i guess it makes sense that you're going to have more stability when there are fewer layers of activity going on. (does that make any sense?)

[Lord Illidan]

i've been steadily reducing the number of gui apps i use and am now down to just three (opera, gimp and gcolor2). the more i use terminal apps, the less trouble i have (only mpd gets a little goofy sometimes). i guess it makes sense that you're going to have more stability when there are fewer layers of activity going on. (does that make any sense?)
Well, the CLI base of Linux is certainly the oldest part of the OS..it makes sense that it will be more stable. Also, there are less issues to handle.

Myself, I use both CLI & GUI equally well, I think.

[fissionmailed]

Nautilus and I don't get along, it seems to like to take up machine and crash every once in a while. ugh On my 64 bit Gusty, it won't open some folders and will crash... I've been thinking about finding something new, but I should reinstall (Nautilus) before that though.

[MemoryDump]

works flawlessly for me here!
there must be something that you've installed or configured differently that's causing you grief on all those desktops... as for flash.. well.. we know it's an Adobe problem.. not ours ;)

[Linuxratty]

I did have problems with Ubuntu crashing with flash...Less so with Klikit Linux,never with XP.
I'm not sure why,but there you have it.

[emshains]

If I try to change compiz setting it crashes, then nautilus, then ssh. But I can live with that, because it happens if I go from glam to none in a click.

I've seen bugs here and there, but have you been trying to roam the internet without a single error for a month? Have you bought an valid version of XP and got the "genuine error" stuff? Have you got an update with a virus in it ? I have, but all my problems bursted into flames when I revealed Ubuntu.

And about flash: windows is bribing companies to produce half-baked program clones for linux, in linux you need 900mhz to run flash, windows stays with 600mhz. EA games tells that there is no market for linux, bolox.

Although I agree, if you dont mess with ubuntu it wont crash, but if you cant help the feeling you can do better, you eventually will screw up, if your no programmer.

[macogw]

Although I agree, if you dont mess with ubuntu it wont crash, but if you cant help the feeling you can do better, you eventually will screw up, if your no programmer.

Bull. Programmers break things more. They're more inclined to tamper with lower level things and poke at what they *really* shouldn't touch.

[OoooMatron]

Let's just be clear that in no way I am supporting XP or even considering going back to it :D

I think that certain areas of the XP desktop are a lot more stable than people give credit for when flying the Linux flag. Certainly as a server with no gnome or kde installed I would say that Ubuntu/Debian is wonderfully stable. As i don't tend to test other distros thoroughly I cannot comment on the quality of their desktops compared to Ubuntu but I find it hard to stray to other distros because they take a lot more time to get the Desktop and application configuration how I want it. I have tried the other WMs in Ubuntu but franlky they are not feature rich and a bit too basic without spending yet more time on a learning curve for them. At some point I wish to stop constantly having to learn and spend time on these things and use my PC productivly.

I don't think that the GUI is flakely or a disaster, just with the way I want to use the Desktop (which is a lot more convinient than XP using nautilus to view/edit and transfer over SSH compared to WinSCP, and logging in with a terminal to remote machines) that I have found things that don't quite always work 100% or are not dealt with correctly when problems arrive. I.e. they work without exception when the going is good but when something happens like loss of network connectivity then suddenly it causes a lot of problems.

[slimdog360]

horrible isnt it.