Monday, September 22, 2008

Hardy USB keyboard freezes (Not solved)

Fact is that I've never had so many freezes with Xp as with Hardy the last two months.
This is really bad. I think instead of hunting at the most eye candy the foremost aim of the distro developers should be stability + hardware support+ gui interfaces where possible to win over the former M$ users.
Don't understand me wrong: Linux has won me over for a multiple numbers of reasons. But I want it to win on a broader scale. I have a friend who is not interested in software; he is interested in doing stuff with his pc. I can't talk him in to Linux as it is now and damn, how sorry I feel about that!!

The most hangups are from using the restricted driver; see this post:
http://stillstup.blogspot.com/search?q=ati

But as you can read below there are a number of reasons it can happen to you.

Case 1:
I have some freeze problems that are described here:
In my case, I have worked with various combinations of PS/2 and USB mice/keyboards. I usually work with a USB keyboard and mouse and a PS/2 port-attached mousepad. When the freezes occurred initially, it would behave similarly to what is described above, with the system continuing to run, but unresponsive to keyboard (USB) events and mouse (USB) clicks, although usually the mouse movement was still detected and the cursor moved about. Interestingly, the mousepad on the PS/2 port continued to function, and if I plugged a PS/2 type keyboard into the machine, it would work too, enabling me to regain control of the crippled machine.
Italics descibe my situation

And:
2
Randomly the desktop freezes, mouse moves but I can't ctrl+alt+backspace or ctrl+alt+f1 although pc is pingable from the network and seems alive. The freeze usually seems to happen when there is heavy load.

And:
3

Hello

I've fixed compiz for HH on my laptop, i show how hoping it serves for someone.

1.- compiz worked fine on my laptop with ubuntu 7.10, it started to freeze when i upgrade to 8.04
2.- once it freezes i had to shutdown with Alt-Prnt+RSEIUB. switch to console or restart X was impossible.
3.- if it freezes once, it was more 'likely' tp freeze again until it hang every time i rotated cube or even with screen saver (it's 3D)

point 3 improved if i deleted .compiz in folders /home and /.config and then ctrl-alt-bcksp, however it freezed 1 out of 3 or 4.
at last i realized that the ubuntu logo and the progress bar at start up had disappeared too, so i fix it with startup manager and put screen resolution at 1024x768, 16 bits, because it was at 640xsomething. i don't know why or how but since then (3 days ago) i've had no problem, although i've tested compiz effects trying to provoke a freeze.

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/compiz/+bug/186058

Important clue: The liveCD does not have this problem!

suggested solutions:
I restarted X by using the Alt-Sysreq-K combination.

2
It would help to open a terminal and run top. Watch the CPU activity. Also add a CPU monitor to your panel--Right-Click--Add on the panel. See if the keyboard freeze is linked to 100% CPU usage. Also note what program is running and eating up your CPU.
3 When your keyboard is frozen, how do you shutdown? If you have access to another computer, install openssh-server and login via ssh so you have a remote connection to your laptop from another machine. Then when you keyboard freezes, go to the remote machine and examine the some log files.

Install openssh-server: (laptop)

>sudo apt-get install openssh-server

On the remote machine

>ssh graymalkin@gramalkin-laptop

or

>ssh graymalkin@192.168.1.10 (whatever your IP address for the laptop is: ifconfig to find out)

Use this remote terminal to examine messages

>dmesg | tail

Look for errors in mouse or keyboard or I/O or network.

To shut down the laptop remotely (you want to avoid using the power button to shutdown if possible)

>sudo poweroff
( https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/196902)

addition:
I've setted poweroff using power button into gnome power management

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