<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta content="text/html;charset=ISO-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type">
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Hi Kai,
<br>
<br>
Kai wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">'morning guys, girls and those who aren't
sure...
<br>
</blockquote>
Depends on the morning <span class="moz-smiley-s3"><span> ;-) </span></span>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I run the AMD64 release, my cousin who I live
with runs the i386 release. I thought there may be something to do with
running the Beta version, X/GDM would crash sporadically, Pidgin would
also crash sporadically and, through trial and error I think I figured
out there may be various website which have code which GDM/X doesn't
like, causes X to crash back to shell...I tried startx again a few
times but nothing fully initialised and I only end up with a dark grey
screen, escaping out of X didn't work so a reset was required.
<br>
</blockquote>
I have 8.04 running in 64-bit as my main file/mail/dns/etc. server and
its uptime is presently... 31+ days. Both laptops and 2 desktops run
8.04 and have had remarkably few issues.
<br>
<br>
GDM was crashing on exit on my partner's machine however a fix for that
appeared when we updated this morning. Despite 8.04 being in full
release you should expect some wrinkles immediately post-release as is
the case for any OS (Windows 2000, XP etc. were only stable after
Service Pack 2 for instance.)
<br>
<br>
Many of the "randomly" behaving PCs I have encountered lately (running
either Windows or Linux) have done so due to memory going bad...
sometimes just one bit somewhere high in memory which gives stable
performance for ages until a program loads into it. Sneaky eh?
<br>
<br>
So I now routinely run the Memtest86 from the Ubuntu boot CD as soon as
anyone says their machine is in any way flakey. I figure it's a good
way of establishing a baseline level of confidence in the hardware
before spending hours poking at the OS.
<br>
<br>
I've not seen websites upset GDM/X and it's been a while since they
upset Firefox badly... Pidgin is still upset by MSN occasionally, but
then you kinda expect that as IM interoperability is a pain.
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I know I have some bad sectors on my secondary
SATA drive, I figured that may be a cause for the random crashes,
however my cousin has the same problem. As mentioned he's running the
i386 release and totally different hardware overall, but he's
experiencing similar problems.
<br>
</blockquote>
Are your problems just similar (random crashes) or exactly the same
(the very same apps fail in the very same way.) I ask because <b
class="moz-txt-star"><span class="moz-txt-tag">*</span>similar<span
class="moz-txt-tag">*</span></b> is just not enough when diagnosing
hardware/software faults. Repeatable is all that matters (hence the
need to eliminate memory problems as this can be a barrier to
repeatability.)
<br>
<br>
I think you really do need to do something about the bad sectors before
you go much further in analysing the problem on your machine! (And do
the memory test just to be sure.) A new 500GB drive is just $92 after
all... <span class="moz-smiley-s3"><span> ;-) </span></span>
<br>
<br>
<br>
I assume you are completely up to date on all updates?
<br>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">My cousins converted himself from Vista to
Ubuntu after seeing me using it and saying "what's that ?! I thought I
thought Linux was too hard to use....etc", I initially gave him the
Live CD and although that was good for a first glimpse it doesn't give
an idea of true reaction time for programs to open and all that.
Anyway, got the all clear from his old man and we have Ubuntu dual
booting with Vista - he says he likes Ubuntu better than Vista... (but
his old man's a Windows man, so better not say it too loudly :P )
<br>
</blockquote>
Good work on the conversion <span class="moz-smiley-s3"><span> ;-) </span></span>
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">I've downloaded the full ISO from 3FL, various
websites say if your machine is still running Beta code you'll be
prompted to upgrade, I have no such prompts and System -> About
Ubuntu doesn't mention anything about Beta, so I'm guessing she's auto
updated to full release.
<br>
</blockquote>
Yeah, I seem to remember the Beta releases going straight to full and
only Feisty etc. offering a distro upgrade. Oh, and for those
wondering, the distro upgrades I've done have gone extremely well! (As
a techy I tend to grimace when committing to this <span
class="moz-smiley-s3"><span> ;-) </span></span>
<br>
<br>
Good luck and keep posting,
<br>
Paul
<br>
</body>
</html>