8.10 X Freezes

[Carterized]

I've checked other threads for this problem. Some similar, but nothing seems close enough to help.

I upgraded from 8.04 to 8.10 using the Update Manager. No problems seen there. After a reboot, I get to the GDM login screen, and the system locks up after a second or two. Mouse pointer and cursor freeze. It seems completely unresponsive.

I reboot into recovery mode and used apt-get to remove compiz, since some other threads mentioned problems with it. Got the same result. Reboot into recovery mode again and removed the nvidia-glx-177 package. I could live with vesa for a while, if it worked. This time I get the expected "low graphics mode" warning, which also locks up.

The 8.10 LiveCD does no better. Booting from the CD seems to go fine until X starts. No login screen (of course), so I get a screen full of brown, with a mouse pointer in the center that will not move. Booting the LiveCD with the "safe" video mode does the same thing.

I suspect this is not just a video issue, but what else could it be?

Hardware that might be relevant:

Nvidia 7900 GS video adapter, PCI-Express

nForce4 motherboard, Athlon64x2 CPU (using Intrepid 32-bit)

USB mouse and keyboard, connected through a hub. Could this be a USB problem in X? I have no problems typing in the recovery mode CLI.

Thanks in advance for any help or ideas on where to start. I've been using Ubuntu since 5.10, and this is the first major problem I've had.

[ennairam]

I have the exact same problem. Only in Kubuntu.

hardware:
MSI motherboard (not sure about the model)
built-in videocard.
AMD 64 CPU (using 32bit OS)
"old-fashioned" keyboard and mouse (I can't remember the name, but it's not usb...)

Upgraded from 8.04 with package manager, with no problems.

I had a similar problem with 8.04 and wine in KDE 3. I launched wine, and after 2-5 seconds, the system froze.No response from either keyboard or mouse. (Not even the Num-Lock-Key.) There was a missing file, and when I installed it, everything was fine. (sorry, I can't remember any details...)

I thought it was a problem with KDE 4, but if others are getting the same problem with gnome, then it's something else.

[dinkydarko]

same problem here. glad someone has raised this.
could someone tell us how we can give more information to let someone with plenty of knowledge of the boot process help?

i'm using a 8800 GTS. have tried removing compiz and changing drivers. getting pretty frustrated as I cant seem to do anything to make it better...
almost wish it was a simple hardware issue but my windows install works without problems even under stress testing.

i've tried removing all usb devices as well. no help.

any ideas?

[Tgeahre]

I'm having it too, I'm on my laptop and after some time (shortest was 20 mins longest was 40) my X freezes forcing hard restart. I thought it was flash in FF at first but I stopped using it and it just happened again.

my device info is in my sig.

my initial theories are:
1. my nvidia drivers are giving difficulties on my other comp with 8.10, maybe the ati ones are giving me problems
2. compix issues
3. firefox

I cant think of many other things that aren't standardly on that I had running all three times

[zackiv31]

Do you guys have these problems without the nvidia drivers? I thought they were nvidia specific. but then i did a fresh install and was still having lockups (in gnome)... I since have tried XFCE and haven't had one freezeup... if you guys can't get working XFCE's desktops then I'll move my search elsewhere...

[Tgeahre]

I have been doing this on an ATI radeon mobil x1400.

[dinkydarko]

has anyone submitted a bug report for this?
Its put me back to windows until i can get around it...

[ennairam]

I have neither ATI nor Nvidia, and I've never had any problems with graphics before.
I've been using the openChrome driver for my videocard.

I don't think it's firefox, because I get this problem as soon as X starts. (before I can log in.)

[mrayyy]

8.10 freezes on the inspiron 8600, too. After the login and before the Desktop is available.

this is what i expected to happen less often in future releases of ubuntu

[guyguyguy]

Im also hit

Have a look at this bug report,
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/259385

If you can add a comment with your specs, this will help the guys trying to solve this figure out where to look and realize the scope of the problem.

The workaround they suggest there is to disable compiz (yay)
but if you really really need compiz, you can try installing xserver_xgl. At least in 8.04 it made compiz work fine on my machine while the nvidia driver had a memory leak without it whenever compiz was enabled. Im guessing here, but I think the xserver_xgl disables at least part of the nvidia driver. Didn't try it yet with 8.10 so don't know if it will work. I just disabled compiz.

Finally, if someone from canonical is reading this, I have to point out that Compiz is enabled by default and is unavoidable when enabled. Breaking it on such a large scale takes the linux alternative a few steps back down the ladder, to the time that you don't expect linux to work out of the box. This expectation is much more important than any feature and was the main achievement of Ubuntu due to the wonderful work you guys are doing. It is obvious to me that 8.10 should not be distributed with compiz enabled by default until this is truly fixed.

cheers,
Guy