Stability

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andrew
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Joined: 04/19/2012

What's everyone else's stability like? Do you ever get a kernel panic, or DRM (Direct Rendering Manager) issues? Do suspend and hibernate work fine?

Main reason why I ask is because once a month or so I get a kernel panic on boot. I also get DRM errors occasionally after suspending my computer, which prevent me from using my computer (so I avoid doing that). I've never tried hibernate.

BTW I'm not complaining, because the issues I have are very small. :) I'm just interested in how stable Trisquel (or any GNU/Linux distro) is for other people.

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

I never, ever, ever, ever (did I already said ever ?), got any Kernel Panic on Gnu/Linux (any Distribution included), but maybe I am very lucky, me and my 10 different machines over the time :D.

Trisquel 5.5 just needed 1 thing to be perfect, and this is the new Kernel Libre, because with the Kernel 3.0 that ships with Trisquel 5.5 you will have a lot of problems (like me with Sound, Video, Virtualbox etc.. etc.. etc..).

After that no problems at all to be honest, but once again, maybe it is just me. As for other distributions, Parabola GNU/Linux is very stable when you know how to configure everything, the problem is when... well... the new Mesa and the new X.org 13, but Gnome 3.6 isn't out yet, and because of that all the Media, Function, Especial buttons don't work at all.

So yes, if you want the most stable Trisquel you have 2 solutions:
1 - Install the latest Linux-libre kernel
2 - Wait for the Trisquel 6 release :D

PS: If you are talking about other thing that Hardware problems then maybe it is another problem. But in terms of stability, and even if I use Parabola more than Trisquel, I have to admit that Trisquel is the most fast, stable, and beautiful distro out there)

andrew
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Joined: 04/19/2012

Thanks for your suggestions. I might try the latest Linux-libre and see if that helps. I've used older kernels (2.6 series) on other distros and had similar issues, so I don't think it's a problem specific to the 3.0 series.

Good thing is that the kernel panics are rare, and only when I'm booting (not when I'm doing work, thank goodness) so it's not a big issue. The suspend issue is a little more annoying because if I'm not using my laptop for 10min I would rather suspend than leave it running.

I did try Parabola once and I found it a little hard to configure, but I could try again later on. Actually, I installed OpenBSD a while back, and I thought it was easier to install than Parabola. But I actually read their documentation really well, which probably helped.

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

Those bugs are weird... What is the message that appears (if any) ?

Wait...wait... How it is easier to install OpenBSD over Parabola/Arch O_o... I lost almost 1 week trying to get anything working with OpenBSD xD (long time ago)

I think that I should give it a try one of those days.

andrew
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Joined: 04/19/2012

I'll post error messages here next time I get them. I tried suspending and unsuspending my computer a few days ago so I could get the error, but it didn't want to not work. :D But I got one yesterday when I was busy, so no time to write it down... :x

As for OpenBSD vs. Parabola, I found X11 and software reasonably easy to install in OBSD. Parabola was more involved - I couldn't get X working on it at all!

I had to write down instructions on paper to do installation of both OpenBSD and Parabola though. I wonder if anyone else does this? :)

Chris

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Joined: 04/23/2011

It's probably gown to a hardware issues. There are a lot of systems with buggy BIOSes for instance. There are hacks which work around some of the issues on some systems although the real fixes should be elsewhere. Unfortunately the situation is not good in a lot of cases. Even where things could in theory be fixed as the source code is available it doesn't always happen. More demand would help. Things are looking better every day though. I see it first hand.

Lengsel
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Joined: 10/23/2012

I use OpenBSD on several machines with xenocara and I think it's straight forward. CVS source to the directory and make build. I greatly appreciated that xenocara is actually developed upon what is there and not simply ported over. Maybe it's only hard for people who are not used to doing everything exclusively in whatever shell or terminal.

I have never seen Parabola

Horgeon
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Joined: 03/29/2011

I've used both OpenBSD 4.8 and 5.1. 4.8 was definitely a pain to configure, I got gnome running after 8 hours. 5.1 was much easier as you can install Xorg in installation time (it comes bundled with the cd). All you have to do then is configure PKG_PATH and install whatever you want.

Lengsel
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Joined: 10/23/2012

How do you spend a week on OpenBSD? I find it easier than Linux. I use OpenBSD on several computers. I just tried Trisquel because it's purely open source for better stability. I reject the argument that everything should be open source to respect people's freedom, that is a covert tactic argument with a Communist end goal. Militaries and federal governments develop some of their own proprietary code to protect the way they communicate for some things, they can't open source it. Do you notice the BSD's are 100% vanilla open source and they never say anything about proprietary or closed source?

I tried Trisquel and I am no fan of it. Since you spent a week trying to get OpenBSD working, could it be that you are not used to or knowledgeable to build and configure everything from the ground up starting with the installation in terminal? I view it as a common problem with Linux people, they think they are techie but tell them to make port, cvs source, and they're lost. I do not have Linux installed on any computers, I tried Trisquel 6 snapshot and don't like it. For me, I find BSD makes more sense, gives each person total control. For example on one computer with OpenBSD I do not have xenocara installed, do not have xorg installed, all work is in terminal and that saves on space and on resources. That is because I only work in ksh and edit configure files in vi, I do not need to use a mouse or have any graphics for anything.

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

I know I too do that (I mean almost everything xD) but I tried... if I remember right, I used FreeBSD, the problem was the errors all along the installation, this made me remember my first Arch Linux installation, errors all along and then after a few days I started to understand how to install it, so maybe I need to (now that I have more knowledge than 6 years ago) to retry it and see how it goes from the BSD side :D

But your description of OpenBSD made me remember Arch Linux but with old (but very stable) packages only.

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

You obviously are not knowledgeable when it comes to security. I mean security through obscurity? Really? Ever heard of "Security-Enhanced Linux"? It is developed by the US National Security Agency within the Linux project (hence distributed under the terms of the GNU GPL).

I would like to understand in what way "respecting people's freedom is communist... but I guess you simply do not know what is communism. Granting the user the control over her own computing (e.g., not being under the surveillance of the state through spyware included in proprietary software) is communist? A free market for support (vs. monopolies of support with proprietary software) is communist?

Besides, you do not know much about Trisquel either. By taking a slightly more patient look at the download page, you would have noticed a Netinstall version that provides, as you wish, a bare system (e.g., no X.org) to build upon.

Finally, please do not call us "Linux people". We are "GNU/Linux users". And we do no advocate "open source" but "free software".

jxself
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Joined: 09/13/2010

Andrew said:
> I might try the latest Linux-libre

I have an APT repository to make that easy: http://jxself.org/linux-libre/

Follow the instructions, install either linux-libre32 or linux-libre64 and then restart.

smurfy
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Joined: 10/18/2012

linux-libre32_3.6.2_i386.deb at http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/pool/main/l/linux-libre32/ is just 626bytes.

It is there at http://www.fscorsica.org/kernel-en.html but only for 64bit.

Can please tell how do you make the deb for linux-libre? or where i can get?

Thanks.

Chris

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Joined: 04/23/2011

http://jxself.org/linux-libre/ says "This repository contains .debs compiled for 32- and 64-bit x86" so I'm not sure what your asking.

smurfy
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Joined: 10/18/2012

But, i could not find how to get real deb file from his repository (direct download like from browser or wget, and not from apt-get).
Distribution through apt-get & just normal download have different author permissions? I mean, am i wrong to assume it is okay to get deb file from wget, if author allows users to get from apt-get?
I have got the sources directly from http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/, but the readme is confusing about compiling & installing. So, i asked for help from him to make deb file myself from the sources, if he is not allowing direct wget download or even then it will be useful to make future versions of linux-libre deb myself.

Chris

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Joined: 04/23/2011

I'm not sure what you are trying to achieve. You can use the -d option with apt-get to download the packages without installing.

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

The good point with pre-compiled packages is that you do not have to compile them! :-) Just follow what is written at http://jxself.org/linux-libre/ to add the APT repository for Linux-libre, hence always have the latest version of this kernel.

Of course, you can download by hand a DEB package and install it with GDebi (for instance). You will not have it updated though. The package you found is 624 bytes large because it basically only specifies a dependency: "linux-image-3.6.2-gnu". This is the "real" package.

smurfy
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Joined: 10/18/2012

ok, so means i was looking at the wrong deb.

Mampir
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Joined: 12/16/2009

You can open deb packages with an archive manager, such as File Roller (installed by default). By examining the files in a deb you can understand what the package does. linux-libre32_3.6.2_i386.deb is a virtual package that depends on linux-image-3.6.2-gnu-686, which can be found it http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/pool/main/l/linux-source-3.6.2-gnu/

smurfy
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Joined: 10/18/2012

thank-you. that is helping information. It is rare to find detail help (beyond general stuff) in forums.
I dont want to try more luck, but still wish to know how deb for linux-libre is made.

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

HI jxself,

About this, I take the time to create a wiki easy and Trisquel-oriented for new users to know how to install the new kernel and use it.

I am saying this because I gave the link to your website and the link to your user page on the Trisquel Forum since you are the maintainer of the repository.

I created it in order to be provided to new users instead of the actual website link (or in addition of). Here is the link https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/update-linux-libre-kernel

Please modify what you don't like or don't agree :D And Sorry if I made any mistake on the wiki.

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

Good work! However, I do not think it makes sense to mention the kernels for PowerPC: Trisquel has never supported this architecture.

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

Thanks :D I only mentioned it because of his availability to install on Trisquel even if Trisquel don't support him by itself, but I could remove it if necessary (or anything else :D).

But at least, now that the "hard" work is done, I can translate it to French (since Portuguese is not available).

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

Done :D https://trisquel.info/fr/wiki/actualiser-le-kernel-linux-libre (My french is getting old because I don't practice it a lot :S..)

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

I guess you are still on it since I cannot save my modifications. Here they are:
Ce tutoriel vous montrera comment actualiser rapidement et facilement le noyau Linux-Libre. Un grand merci à [http://trisquel.info/en/users/jxself jxself] pour la maintenance de ce dépôt (Pour plus d'informations : http://jxself.org/linux-libre/).

===Ajouter le dépôt :===

'''1.''' Modifier le fichier source.list :

Nous allons modifier '''/etc/apt/sources.list''' de façon à ajouter le nouveau dépôt. J'utiliserai ici gedit, mais vous pouvez utiliser l’éditeur de texte de votre choix.

Exécutez dans un terminal la commande suivante :
sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Ajoutez au fichier ouvert cette ligne :
deb http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/ freesh main

Enregistrer.

'''2.''' Téléchargez et Ajoutez la clé du dépôt :

Exécutez dans un terminal la commande suivante :
wget http://linux-libre.fsfla.org/pub/linux-libre/freesh/archive-key.asc
Une fois le téléchargement achevé, ajoutez la clé comme ceci :
sudo apt-key add archive-key.asc

'''3.''' Actualisez les dépôts :

Les informations sur les dépôts doivent être actualisées afin que le nouveau noyau nous soit proposé. Pour cela écrivez ce qui suit dans le terminal :
sudo apt-get update

(À votre convenance '''aptitude''' peut remplacer '''apt-get''').

===Installer le nouveau noyau Linux-libre :===

'''1.''' Choisissez le noyau correspondant à votre l'architecture de votre système (si vous l'ignorez, la commande '''arch''' vous la retourne) :

{| border="2"
|-
! colspan="2" | Architecture CPU
! colspan="3" | Nom do Paquet
|-
| rowspan="2" | x86
| 32-bit
| linux-libre32linux-libre32-headers
|-
| 64-bit
| linux-libre64linux-libre64-headers
|-
| rowspan="2" | PowerPC
| 32-bit
| linux-libre-powerpclinux-libre-powerpc-headers
|-
| 64-bit
| linux-libre-powerpc64linux-libre-powerpc64-headers
|}

J'installerai, dans cet exemple, le noyau '''linux-libre64''' et les entêtes '''linux-libre64-headers''' associées (ces entêtes sont nécessaires à certaines applications comme Virtualbox).

'''1.''' Installez le noyau (et les entêtes si nécessaires) :

Nous allons maintenant simplement utiliser '''apt-get''' (ou '''aptitude''') de façon à installer, à partir du dépôt, le noyau Linux-Libre le plus récent. Pour cela, exécutez la commande suivante dans un terminal :
sudo apt-get install linux-libre64 linux-libre64-headers

Il ne vous reste plus qu'à patienter jusqu’à la fin de l’installation.

===Actualiser Grub :===
Ceci est la dernière, mais aussi la plus importante étape. En effet, sans cette étape, il ne vous sera pas possible de voir et de démarrer le nouveau noyau fraîchement installé au démarrage de la machine? Ce serait dommage vu tout le travail réalisé jusqu'à maintenant ! Pour cette dernière étape, exécutez ceci dans le terminal :
sudo update-grub2

Patientez jusqu’à la fin de la mise à jour de GRUB et redémarrez la machine.

Votre Trisquel tourne maintenant au dessus de dernier noyau Linux-Libre !

Si vous rencontrez un problème, reportez le ici :
* [https://trisquel.info/en/project/issues Trisquel Issues]
* [http://jxself.org/linux-libre/ jxself WebPage]

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

Modifié :D

jbar
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aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

Thank you :D I added just the line about the "arch" command, I hope I didn't make any Spanish errors. If so please correct modify it if possible.

jbar
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Joined: 01/22/2011

Perfect.

Magic Banana

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Joined: 07/24/2010

On Trisquel, I do not think you can install a kernel for PowerPC from APT. That would mean the system would fetch packages from repositories for this architecture. Trisquel does not provide any such repository.

aliasbody
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Joined: 09/14/2012

I will remove it then (until someday, if this ever happens, an official version for the powerpc cames out).

Horgeon
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Joined: 03/29/2011

I dont use either suspend or hibernation. But when I shutdown the computer it occasionaly hangs with radeon DRM errors scrolling on the screen, and I have to use the button to shutdown. That's the only problem. This only affects 5.5 and no other previous version, and I also did not have such 'feature' in 6.0 so I assume it is fixed again.

BTW if you move the panel to the left with windows open it crashes.

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

>But when I shutdown the computer it occasionaly hangs with radeon DRM errors scrolling on the screen, and I have to use the button to shutdown.

Try this, can't remember where I found this from but I have a radeon card and I had something radeon related wildly scrolling on screen at reboot or shutdown but doing this fixed it:

sudo mv /etc/rc6.d/S35networking /etc/rc6.d/S15networking
sudo mv /etc/rc0.d/S35networking /etc/rc0.d/S15networking
sudo mv /etc/rc6.d/S31umountnfs.sh /etc/rc6.d/S05umountnfs.sh
sudo mv /etc/rc0.d/S31umountnfs.sh /etc/rc0.d/S05umountnfs.sh

If memory serves correctly it was about some race condition.

Horgeon
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Joined: 03/29/2011

Still looks the same. What was it supposed to show now?

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

For me it shows nothing, just the usual reboot/restart messages.

miga
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Joined: 09/17/2011

The only time I've gotten a kernel panic on GNU/Linux is when I overclocked and it turned out to be unstable.

Besides that, my stability has been excellent.

lembas
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Joined: 05/13/2010

Quite stable on my hw. I've seen maybe 1 or 2 kernel panics, no drm issues. I use my box 12+ hours daily. Suspend and hibernate work after tinkering maybe 95% of time but sometimes it hangs in hibernation. Haven't tried properly debugging it since it's so rare.

Very happy with it.

miga
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Joined: 09/17/2011

I leave my PC running for weeks at a time and I don't have any issues.

I haven't even seen any kernel panics outside of what I've said before, where it was overclocking issues...

Platypus333
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Joined: 12/10/2010

Two years of Taranis and a year of Brigantia and no KPs or crashes, suspend and hibernate work fine.

For me, instability in GNU/Linux usually points to hardware failures.

You can check your RAM with the ' memtest86+ ' package from memtest.org .

' fsck ' and ' badblocks ' will check the HD.

Cheap USB ports on laptops have caused errors for me before.
As root, you can do a rudimentary check with ' tail -f /var/log/syslog ' and then jiggling the USB cables.

Trisquel is a solid build , thanks to all who put their effort towards making this great free distro.

onpon4
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Joined: 05/30/2012

No instability here. I have gotten this weird thing where the graphics are all screwed up and there's another minor issue where an odd error message that repeats over and over when turning off the computer rather than the normal wallpaper image, but I'm pretty sure both of these are because of of the integrated graphics controller (from AMD) on the computer, because I never had these problems with the video card ThinkPenguin sells (during the time I had it; I had to send it back for an exchange a few days ago because it was bizarrely locking up the system after playing 3D games for a while).

On my mom's computer, I installed Linux Mint a while back (I chose that partly because I wasn't confident that she would be accepting of not having Flash, though in retrospect she doesn't really use non-YouTube Flash to begin with, so I'll see how well Trisquel or maybe Parabola works on her system some time, methinks). It does often crash, oddly enough, when the printer (an HP one) is turned off while plugged into the computer.

theblackpig

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Joined: 09/13/2012

Midori is unstable ,crashes regularly