Pangolin Performance: 1280x800 not available in 8.10 Intrepid

[phyzome]

When I upgraded to Intrepid, my screen resolution came up 1024x768, which is small, distorted, and ugly on my widescreen laptop, a panp4i.

System -> Preferences -> Screen Resolution presents a very confusing dialog. (Also, the Help button doesn't work.) If I uncheck "mirror" (what is that?) then I can select 1280x800. The screen resizes, but Gnome does not. See attachment.

xfix in recovery mode was of no use, and adding a Display subsection to xorg.conf with appropriate modes did nothing.

Obviously, I should have waited to upgrade. But how was I supposed to know?

[phyzome]

By the way, I did a full system backup with rsync just before upgrading. I should be able to restore my system to 8.04 by booting from LiveCD and rsyncing back, yes?

[thomasaaron]

It's available in Intrepid. Sounds like some sort of xorg issue during the upgrade process.

Try:
sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
sudo apt-get --purge remove xserver-xorg-video-intel
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg #Choose all defaults
sudo reboot -h now

[phyzome]

I went ahead and rsync'd everything back into place. There were far too many bugs. (Suspend key didn't work, ACPI had some problems, screen resolution, cheese stopped working...) Also, the upgrade process itself had a number of problems, such as not recognizing the perfectly good Intrepid CD. It had to download everything instead of loading from CD.

Perhaps I will try again in a few weeks.

It's available in Intrepid. Sounds like some sort of xorg issue during the upgrade process.

Try:
sudo mv /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.backup
sudo apt-get --purge remove xserver-xorg-video-intel
sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-video-intel
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg #Choose all defaults
sudo reboot -h now

Thanks for the tip. Is this the sort of thing that will be resolved after a few weeks, or will I definitely need to do that when I upgrade?

Also, how will we know when 8.10 is officially supported?

[thomasaaron]

Is this the sort of thing that will be resolved after a few weeks, or will I definitely need to do that when I upgrade?

Your problem is probably pretty random in nature considering the number of customers who have upgraded and the relatively few who have encountered problems.

My suggestion is just an educated guess as to how you might fix it. It's not a regular thing you would do after every upgrade. I'm just betting that you have some sort of config file corruption somewhere. I kind of doubt it is a bug, per se - but I could be wrong.

Also, how will we know when 8.10 is officially supported?

It is officially supported when Canonical releases the final version (i.e. after the beta and alpha versions). So, that would've been Friday? or Saturday?

[phyzome]

My suggestion is just an educated guess as to how you might fix it. It's not a regular thing you would do after every upgrade. I'm just betting that you have some sort of config file corruption somewhere. I kind of doubt it is a bug, per se - but I could be wrong.

I'd rather not go through the backup/restore process again, if possible. (There's too much room for error.) Is there a way I could put my current system into VirtualBox and test the upgrade process that way? Would that be sufficient to flush out any display issues?

[thomasaaron]

I'm sure it's probably doable... somehow... but it seems a little complex. You might be onto something, though.

You might create an Ubuntu VM in virtualbox (not your primary installation, but an... expendable... VM) and run the upgrade on that. That way, if it gets hosed, who cares.

But I don't think the VM would have a direct connection with the hardware. It would *really* be using the xserver/xorg of the main install. So, it might not work the way you would hope.

To be honest, this is why I prefer keeping a separate home partition and doing a fresh install. Ubuntu is a complex OS, and there are just so many little crannies that errors could conceivably slip through in the upgrade process -- whether it is something the devs missed or a data corruption because of stressed servers.

One might also create a separate partition for installing and testing new Ubuntu versions. Then, if you like it, you can transfer your files over to the new partition.

Hey, at least you were smart enough to do a good backup! That's something to be happy about, yes?

[phyzome]

To be honest, this is why I prefer keeping a separate home partition and doing a fresh install. Ubuntu is a complex OS, and there are just so many little crannies that errors could conceivably slip through in the upgrade process -- whether it is something the devs missed or a data corruption because of stressed servers.

I've certainly considered it, but I have some concerns:

• What happens to MySQL databases and settings?
• Local apache2 website configurations?
• SSH settings like AllowUser?
• GDM login settings?

It's not that I've reconfigured my system to any great extent, but I've got a lot of data and settings that would be lost by in a fresh install.

One might also create a separate partition for installing and testing new Ubuntu versions. Then, if you like it, you can transfer your files over to the new partition.

Huh. I could definitely mirror my partitions to another drive, and use that as a test bed for upgrading. Perhaps I'll try that.

Hey, at least you were smart enough to do a good backup! That's something to be happy about, yes?

I learned my lesson the hard way.

Oh, and for those of you following along at home, here is the command I used for backup:

sudo rsync --dry-run -av --delete-during --exclude=sys --exclude=dev --exclude=proc --exclude=tmp --exclude=mnt --exclude=media / /media/FreeAgent/fibonatch/ | tee results.txt

Remove the `--dry-run` once you're satisfied it does what you want.

To restore, I booted from a Live CD, mounted the laptop's root partition (and then the home partition onto that), and reversed the rsync command.

For safety, you might want to remount the backup drive readonly during a restore.

[thomasaaron]

I upgraded my personal GazV5 last night, and it was pretty close to flawless. I think I found my favorite way to do it.

I downloaded the alternate CD iso to my desktop, mounted that image and upgraded from it.

The whole process took about 30 minutes (as you don't have to download all the packages in real time from a server or CD). Then ran updates, ran the System76 driver, fixed my lamp server (which was disabled by the upgrade), and called it a night.

[marcor]

I have a panp4i with intel graphics with a fresh install of Ibex. The screen resolutions I can choose from all have the wrong ratios (4:3 instead of 16:10). The problem is that the system detects another screen but none is plugged in. You can see that with xrandx. here is the output of xrandr on my computer:

LVDS connected 1280x800+0+0 (normal left inverted right x axis y axis) 331mm x 207mm
1280x800 59.9*+
1024x768 60.0
800x600 60.3
640x480 59.9
HDMI-1 disconnected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
HDMI-2 connected (normal left inverted right x axis y axis)
1360x768 59.8
1152x864 60.0*
1024x768 60.0
800x600 60.3
640x480 59.9

you can see that HDMI-2 is detected as if there was a screen plugged in. This is clearly a bug. I temporarily fixed the problem by disabling this output with xrandr but I am looking for a permanent fix.

Marco