Confusing issues with and without Trisquel 7
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I
bought the Think Penguin wi-fi adapter so that I could switch back to
using Trisquel, as I'd been using Lubuntu for wi-fi compatibility after
moving beyond cable reach. I chose to try Trisquel 7 instead of 6.01
because it's nearing completion, and for the most part it's working
well. Where something goes wrong, however, it fails horribly: the
screen slows then freezes during the "loading" notification whenever I
try to view Home with hidden files visible. The only recourse has been
REISUB -- and sometimes even that didn't work.
Though I can operate a computer just fine, I'm out of my depth in
troubleshooting. Even if the issue showed up in a log, I don't know
where to look for such a log. Not knowing whether it's Trisquel,
nouveau, my hardware, or even intrusion or surveillance, I find myself
frustrated beyond belief and about to take a sledge hammer to my PC.
(And in that last sentence, my text editor closed for no reason.)
So that brings me to my next point: if this is not a glitch, if this is
indeed something malicious, something infecting the firmware or perhaps
surreptitiously added to the wi-fi hardware before it reached me, how
can I shake it off? All my contacts are through the Internet, all my
OSes are downloaded; even if I got a stranger to give me a ride to a
computer repair shop, their cell-phone or GPS or something would give it
away.
(And gedit closed again.)
Now I'm getting panicky. My future -- business plans, finances,
friendships -- would be undermined if this turns out to be something
creepy like a computer cracker or government agent playing sadistic
games with my life. (I'm no Hemingway, but the precedent stands!)
After getting the wi-fi module, I started experiencing numerous strange
problems, despite my best efforts at stringent wi-fi security.
Keystrokes would begin returning the wrong characters, yet I noticed no
language/localization software active. The system became slower and
much less responsive.
(Closed again!)
Now, similar occurrences are popping up with Trisquel, too, and I
installed it just today! This makes me suspicious. Though I've been
involved in some minor libertarian activism, and have recently
experimented with Tor, Bitmessage, and the like, I don't see what profit
there would be in attacking me; still, I wouldn't put it past the
bullies.
I know this post is rather disjointed, perhaps even paranoid, but I
would appreciate any advice or help you could provide.
Here's a few random things to do
There are various more or less cryptic logs in /var/log.
You could boot off a Trisquel live CD or USB and leave the memory checker running overnight.
You could try making a live CD on another well behaving system and then running it on this system, first without the wifi and then with.
There are also packages rkhunter and chkrootkit, take their results with a grain of salt though.
I would have thought that it's extremely unlikely that it's "them" messing with your computer, unless you're some kind of recognised name planning to promote libresoftware to the world, or a spy.
More likely is some sort of hardware issue. I've had mirror characters onscreen, typing that appeared in reverse direction (right to left), flashing icons, all sorts. All on one OS. I just wiped and reinstalled and the issue never reappeared.
You could try that adaptor on a different 'known to be working" OS prior to using it on Trisquel. See if there's any similarity in behaviour.
The problem has increased to graphical artifacts on various parts of the desktop, to the point of it becoming a jumbled patchwork of image fragments. Even opening the logs caused graphical glitches and a system freeze.
In earlier versions of Trisquel, I sometimes experienced freezes as well, but those seemed to be resolved by using a proprietary video driver, or (after Trisquel started actively undermining lay users' ability to install non-free drivers), switching to VLC and/or disabling compositing.
But this time around it's far beyond nuisance level, plus there seems to be no option to modify the compositing.
I will look into the suggestions you two have made, though testing on another computer is not an option at this time.
If there was spyware in your system, it would be running quietly, because the last thing someone spying on you would want to do is have you find out.
That leaves three possibilities that I can envision: 1) a legitimate error in the system, 2) an incomptentent spy, or 3) someone is trying to cause me stress. The first is the most probable, but I cannot yet discount the others.
Shortly after typing my reply, upon trying to browse another folder, everything locked up during the "loading" message (again). This time, however, it eventually fell back to the terminal screen, where I was able to copy down some of what appeared before the desktop reappeared (though still locked).
It was a quick scramble for paper and pencil, so this might not be 100% accurate...
[DRM] GPU lockup - switching to software fbcon
[Xorg1990] failed to idle channel
...
[PFIFO]
...
[compton[1991]]
...
Graphics issue.
You might try powering down, disconnecting the video card, power up then down again after a few seconds, then put the card back in, connect the monitor and power up. This will not make one iota of difference if it's a driver issue, but might help if it's a messed up hardware issue. I've seen the same method of removal, powering up/down then readding, sort out hard drives that couldn't be seen or wouldn't boot.
As the old cliche says, "it's a long shot, but it might just work".
ION integrated graphics, so almost certainly no way to try that trick. (On the up side, it does make a marvelously quiet machine with no fans.)
You could try asking for help on IRC, channel #nouveau on irc.freenode.net.
One crutch that might allow you to use your machine in the meanwhile would be to hold the shift key when the system is booting up, that should bring up the GRUB boot loader menu. In that menu edit the boot options and add "nomodeset" and/or "xforcevesa". Then boot.
In the end you probably need a different kernel version. (Stay away from Linux, use Linux-libre!)
I'll have to try something, because running anything useful on it makes it lock up every few minutes.
https://trisquel.info/en/forum/trisquel-7-suspend-issues
Post 3 contains a link to an alternative kernel. I installed it with no problem whilst trying to get Suspend/Resume to work.
Do you have nVidia? I had graphics artifacts on a computer with nVidia with Trisquel 7 but not 6. Upgrading your kernel may help (using jxself's repo).
About the other issues, i don't know, but I used to have weird issues occasionally and it turned out to be because my keyboard's home key was stuck. Whenever I was entering text, the cursor would go to the beginning, and web pages would scroll to the top.
Yes, ION is an Intel/nVidia combination.
As for the keys, that's what I thought at first, too. So I disassembled and cleaned my keyboard (a few weeks ago, when I was still using Lubuntu), but nothing changed.
After reading the suggestions, I tried jxself's kernel. It resulted in the ugly terminal boot screen being replaced by a nice Trisquel logo and background, but it also killed my wi-fi access again, leaving me no way to ask how to fix it.
So, I installed 6.01 instead. That's working fairly well, except for not remembering how I got my Brother HL-2270DW working the last time.
All told, I'm more or less back to where I was a few months ago, which goes to show I should have coughed up the money to order the wi-fi module back then! :D
Do you use an ath9k_htc USB adapter? (If you aren't sure, post the output of running lsusb in a terminal)
There is a bug with the ath9k_htc chipsets in newer kernels. A workaround can be found at https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/penguin-wireless-n-usb-adapter-gnu-linux-tpe-n150usb-tpe-n150usbl-tpe-nusbdb
I purchased the TPE-N150USB, which is indeed mentioned on the page you cited. I think I'll wait a few more months before testing Trisquel 7 again.
The workaround is really easy, but hopefully it's enabled by default in the final version.
EDIT: Trisquel 7.0 doesn't use kernel 3.15 by default, so it probably won't be enabled by default. If you have to use 3.15 to solve other hardware issues, you will have to use the workaround for your ath9k_htc adapter. But really, it's not much, you just have to make a file with one line in it.
I tried 7 again, this time adding ath9k_htc.conf first, then switching to jxself's kernel. Eventually, I had the same problems. Garbled menus and windows, followed by an extreme slowdown and total lockup. It happens regardless of whether I have the wi-fi device plugged in.
Today I ran the newest Trisquel 7 from a USB stick. It took a few minutes for me to encounter the problem, and it seemed to be only after I started browsing websites. I tried to take some screen grabs, but they came out black. :)
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