Ubuntu unstable as hell for me.

Post Reply New Topic

I've been getting insanely sick of Windows and it's instability issues. I've used Windows ever since the family's first computer in '04 and with my own computers until lately when I've had the last straw.

A few days ago I finally decided to try Ubuntu for the first time, and while I liked the OS itself (except for the lack of iTunes support with Wine), the stability is a nightmare. It crashes like a m*****f*****. Windows didn't do this.

I can use it for like a half hour at a time, then it freezes to the point where the only thing I can do is right click. That right-click pop-up menu will show up, but hell, I can't even click on anything within it, even though the options highlight when I roll the mouse over them. Then I gotta do the emergency power-off, where I hold down the power button for 5 seconds. I've been told that repetition of this maneuver is bad on the hardware.

What's the deal? Is there anyway to get around this incident?

I wish Ubuntu was better, at least in terms of its hardware compatibility. The last two times I bought a Windows computer I put the latest version of Ubuntu on it as well. On both occasions I've ended up having to delete it due to problems. From what I understand from others Ubuntu is very good and stable... provided it has all the right drivers. I could never track down all the drivers needed for my computers and it also did some silly stuff with the laptop screen putting it into dim mode immediately after Ubuntu booted. I finally gave up after wasting hours and hours on forums and Google searches. Maybe one day I will be lucky enough to get a computer that is fully Ubuntu compatible. I'm not holding my breath though.

I'm bemused. I've put Ubuntu (and various other distributions) on many machines. Once in a while, over recent years, I've had the odd, minor problem. E.g. the ethernet driver for the Acer Aspire One wasn't too happy, at first, but that was updated fairly quickly. I didn't actually need it, as the WiFi driver was perfect from day one.

So far as "instability" is concerned... that's never happened.

It may be worth running a soak test with memtest86, CowboyFromHell, to see if there is an underlying RAM problem.

The other thing to do is to look at the log files, to see if anything is reported.
System / Administration / System Log - and leave it running.

System / Administration / System Monitor may give other clues.

unstable on both windows and ubuntu?

What hardware do you have? Sounds to me like your computer has issues... Issues that perhaps Linux is more sensitive to :-/

I don't want to hijack the thread, but to reply:

On an old XP computer Ubuntu (7.?) failed to install properly and I was left with an unbootable machine so ended up reformatting and putting Windows back on it.

Regarding the other two computers the problem was a lack of drivers for modems. Living here in the middle of a field in France I've only got dial-up internet.

On my HP nx7021 laptop it proved impossible to get a working driver for the internal modem and consequently without any internet connection the Ubuntu (8.?) installation was of no use and subsequently deleted.

My latest laptop Advent 9617 connects via an external dial-up modem. A Trust MD-1270. After a lot of messing about, internet searches and running some analysis software I eventually got some software to download then compile and after a lot of messing about configuring and guessing settings it finally worked. It probably took around 8 hours messing about to reach this stage. However, during an update Ubuntu managed to trash the internet connection. That problem combined with trying to work with the dim screen was the final straw and I gave up on Ubuntu 9.?. The dim screen problem had no resolution. The F7 key didn't work to bring the brightness back and I couldn't find any useful information online that worked.

In summary I think that if Ubutu installs and works straight away you are likely to sing its praises. However, if you are new to that OS and it gives you problems you can spend many frustrating hours on Internet forums and Google searches, trying this and that and going around in ever decreasing circles of annoyance.

The latest release, 9.10, definitely has some problems according to several sources including "The Register" in the UK. Might be a good idea to try an earlier version until the post-release version is out.

I would recommend always using the long term releases from Ubuntu. I've had no problems with the 8.04 release, and I've been using on a couple of computers since July 2008.

You could give Debian a shot. It's much more stable than any other system I've seen.

The problem isn't Ubuntu, it's Windows.. Why? Because manufacturers will dominantly make drivers for Windows and have have Linux drivers on the internet somewhere and not on t he CD. So if you can't get on the internet, you'll have to use another method, but not Linux to do it.

Except for the NIC drivers, I don't see this as a problem. The drivers on the disc are usually outdated anyway.

@CowboyFromHell
A lot of people seem to have problem with Compiz on Ubuntu 9.10, removing that may help.
Your problem seem a bit strange though, does it happen after a period of idle. If so, that may be a power management issue.

It doesn't matter how old the drivers are. They are enough to get full functionality from that device. Newer releases are only those that fix bugs and maybe add extra functions, etc

From the perspective of the user, the problem is Ubuntu. If someone's graphics card works great in Windows but they can't enable 3D acceleration in Linux, that is an advantage of Windows over Linux. This is a point free-software advocates tend to miss when they whine about manufacturers not providing drivers. The end user doesn't care whose fault it is. Linux doesn't work on their hardware, so they won't use it. The only way to change this is to find some way to make Linux work easily on more hardware.

Now you've gone too far! Hand in your fanboy badge. You are off the case!

That is so true. I keep hoping that one day I will be able to get a disk from Cannonical and install Ubuntu on a computer and that be the end of it and for Ubuntu to fully work on all the hardware. At the moment that seems to be something of a lottery. For non-technical users or Ubuntu virgins getting the software up and running properly can be a massive obstacle. I wonder how many people give up in frustration or just don't have the time to spend many hours on forums or Googling for solutions? If it is simply a case of quickly finding a driver and installing it fine, however in my experience all the required drivers either don't exist or it becomes a mammoth task tracking down the correct version or some obscure source code and compiling it and messing about in arcane folders and editing configuration files. The average none-technical user doesn't want to get that technically involved. Until Ubuntu installs straight off a disk without further ado it will remain largely the operating system of techies.

If there's problems even with Ubuntu, run a scan on it's RAM and check the hardware. It's likely there's a hardware fault.

There are quite a few non-free (restricted) drivers that can be loaded into the Linux kernel. If not, the Linux users try to reverse engineer the windows drivers to create ones that work in Linux.