A sad day for a Ubuntu fan

[fox]

I think I've had enough from the glitches in running Ubuntu 20.04 from a 2015 iMac. Today may have been the last straw. The problems I'm facing are:

• cannot run the default LTS kernel
• Zoom audio is unreliable and has failed several times
• Virtualbox wouldn't run my Windows 7 vm
• I couldn't get the VMware tools installed on VMware Player with a Peppermint Linux guest
• Internal sound doesn't work
• Copy/paste only works only every other time

The differences with Mint 19.3 are starting to mount. It won't run the latest kernel either, but it's based on Ubuntu 18.04 and its LTS kernel runs well. Zoom is OK, VirtualBox is OK, copy/paste is OK, internal sound is not. I'm not sure how much of my problems are Gnome-related, kernel-related, or distro-related, but I'm getting weary of dealing with them all. It is starting to remind me of what they used to say about the difficulties of setting up and running Linux. I haven't used Ubuntu 18.04 in awhile, but I'm pretty sure that if I went back to it, only the sound wouldn't work. I'm also not sure what would happen if I were to upgrade to Mint 20 when it is released. But 19.3 receives support for as long as the 4.15 kernel and Ubuntu 18.04.

Contemplating not using Ubuntu would be a real regression for me. It has been my go-to distro for as long as I've been actively using Linux. So I haven't made a permanent switch yet, but as of now I'm thinking of Linux Mint as my main distro. (At least on my desktop machine.) I feel like lowering the flag to half-mast. 

[Jason]

I think I've had enough from the glitches in running Ubuntu 20.04 from a 2015 iMac. Today may have been the last straw. The problems I'm facing are:

   
• cannot run the default LTS kernel
• Zoom audio is unreliable and has failed several times
• Virtualbox wouldn't run my Windows 7 vm
• I couldn't get the VMware tools installed on VMware Player with a Peppermint Linux guest
• Internal sound doesn't work
• Copy/paste only works only every other time

The differences with Mint 19.3 are starting to mount. It won't run the latest kernel either, but it's based on Ubuntu 18.04 and its LTS kernel runs well. Zoom is OK, VirtualBox is OK, copy/paste is OK, internal sound is not. I'm not sure how much of my problems are Gnome-related, kernel-related, or distro-related, but I'm getting weary of dealing with them all. It is starting to remind me of what they used to say about the difficulties of setting up and running Linux. I haven't used Ubuntu 18.04 in awhile, but I'm pretty sure that if I went back to it, only the sound wouldn't work. I'm also not sure what would happen if I were to upgrade to Mint 20 when it is released. But 19.3 receives support for as long as the 4.15 kernel and Ubuntu 18.04.

Contemplating not using Ubuntu would be a real regression for me. It has been my go-to distro for as long as I've been actively using Linux. So I haven't made a permanent switch yet, but as of now I'm thinking of Linux Mint as my main distro. (At least on my desktop machine.) I feel like lowering the flag to half-mast. 

Is that the same computer that you had to run an audio dongle on it to get sound/mic?

[fox]

Yup. Actually, I just realized that the Zoom issue must be related to the mic in that I can hear others but they can't hear me. Maybe it's something as simple as my input sound level?







Administrator: Message modified because odd characters appearing in the post through no fault of the user caused it to not be displayed.

[fox]

.... The problems I'm facing are:

• cannot run the default LTS kernel
• Zoom audio is unreliable and has failed several times
• Virtualbox wouldn't run my Windows 7 vm
• I couldn't get the VMware tools installed on VMware Player with a Peppermint Linux guest
• Internal sound doesn't work
• Copy/paste only works only every other time

....

OK, I've solved one of the problems fully and one partly. The Zoom audio problem is solved. The Sound panel had the wrong microphone input. It's internal; there is no microphone connected to my external speaker dongle. In the case of VirtualBox, I now know that VB 6.1 (installed in Ubuntu 20.04) won't work with the 4.15 kernel. When I boot up with the 5.4 kernel (yeah, the one that takes 3 minutes to boot), VB works fine. I suspect I can solve that problem by installing VB 5 from Oracle's website. Anyone know if it's OK to install two versions of VB on the same distro?

As far as VMware Player goes; it is now a non-problem. I only installed it because VB wasn't working. With these problems solved, the only residual problem with Ubuntu that I'm not getting in Mint is the copy/paste problem. So I'm back to a near-standoff on the two systems, and I'll just keep running both.

I think I can solve the kernel problem once AMD issues a version of their proprietary amd-gpu pro driver that works with Ubuntu 20.04. That hasn't happened yet, but they should issue it soon. This will affect my running of both Ubuntu and Mint, once Mint 20 is released.

[buster]

Fox wrote: I couldn't get the VMware tools installed on VMware Player with a Peppermint Linux guest"

Bizarre to me because I installed them super easy on Peppermint. I use it successfully as a main distro some days.

Use Synaptic to download open-vm-tools and open-vm-tools-desktop.

[fox]

You were right, Buster, but it wasn't evident to me that this is how you do it. The VMware site had me do it a very different way, and that was what didn't work. In fact it's still not evident what the right to do it is because I installed those files in both the host and guest without trying them one by one. Which is it?

Incidentally, this gives me the option of trying out VMware Player in general. I'm used to using VirtualBox because it's always in the distro's repositories, but both are proprietary, both are free for non-commercial use and VMware Player is easy enough to find and install. It might work better on my Ubuntu partition, seeing as it works with the 4.15 kernel. (The version of VirtualBox installed from the repositories only works with the newer kernel.)

[buster]

"In fact it's still not evident what the right to do it is because I installed those files in both the host and guest without trying them one by one. Which is it?"

I have never used any other method other than the open-vm files. I do know that the VMWare site doesn't push them, at least it never used to. The oddity is that I found out about the files in the first place. Almost every distro has them available through Synaptic.

Some distros have at least one of the files installed as you boot for the first time.

So install both in the guest.

Two distros that don't make them available are Endeavour and PCLinuxOS.

[Jason]

I'm used to using VirtualBox because it's always in the distro's repositories, but both are proprietary...

That's not correct. VirtualBox is Open Source under the terms of the GPU version 2. The extension pack is proprietary but don't confuse that with the Guest Additions (shared folder, drag and drop, etc.)

You can get older versions of VirtualBox, as well. I find that the distro's version is usually behind except when a new release is out, of course. But unless you're the type to prefer to use open source whenever you can, and don't need the snapshot ability, I'd suggest people go with WMware Player, too.

[fox]

Thanks for that clarification, Jason. I didn't know that VB was open source and I didn't know that there is a difference between Guest Additions and the extension pack. So what is in the extension pack that isn't in the Guest Additions?

VMware Player has one advantage for my particular situation - the current version works with the 4.15 kernel as well as the newer kernels. I set up a Peppermint Linux vm easily with it except for one thing - I can't seem to make shared folders or drag and drop work. I don't care about that for Peppermint, but I would if I set up a Windows vm in Player because the only reason I would use it would require moving files back and forth from host to guest.

I know that one can access older versions of VirtualBox (from their website). Can one have an older and a new version installed at the same time in a given distro?

[buster]

" I can't seem to make shared folders or drag and drop work."

Check your personal messages. If that doesn't work, I guess I'll have to reinstall vmware in mint and test it.

[fox]

Thanks for that suggestion, Buster. I reinstalled the open-vm-tools-desktop file and now I have shared folders and the ability to drag a file from host to guest (but not vice-versa). While I would still prefer to use the open source VirtualBox, I at least have the option of running a guest in Ubuntu 20.04 with the 4.15 kernel using VMware Player.

[buster]

If you test Peppermint enough and feel it might be a good alternative to Ubuntu, please start a new thread about how it goes. Like 'Adventures with Peppermint'. Be interesting to hear how it works right on the hard drive, and whether it solves your ongoing problems.

[fox]

Good thought, but it's not a solution I'm contemplating because it won't solve the big problem - the boot issue with any kernel newer than 5.2. Right now Peppermint 10 is using the 5.3 kernel. The live disk comes with 5.0 and I can choose to not let it upgrade, but the 5.0 kernel is no longer being maintained. I can, of course use the 4.15 Ubuntu LTS kernel in Peppermint as I am doing in Ubuntu 20.04 and Mint 19.3, but support for it will run out at the same time in all three distros. Regardless of which of the three distros I'm using, it is Canonical (Ubuntu) that is maintaining the 4.15 kernel until April 2023; the other two distros are using the Ubuntu-maintained kernels.

Peppermint is a nice distro and I will play with it some more, but it doesn't have any distinct advantage over Ubuntu or Mint that I can see. But I can still start or add to a new Peppermint thread. Why don't you start one since right now you have more experience with it than I do.

[Jason]

Thanks for that clarification, Jason. I didn't know that VB was open source and I didn't know that there is a difference between Guest Additions and the extension pack. So what is in the extension pack that isn't in the Guest Additions?

I know that one can access older versions of VirtualBox (from their website). Can one have an older and a new version installed at the same time in a given distro?

The extension Pack provides more support for hardware such as USB 2/3 devices, webcams, PXE booting, RDP and webcam pass-through and the like. The basic info is on the Downloads page for the VirtualBox website with a link to a section in the manual that provides more details.

The Guest Additions are like the VMware tools, they allow for transferring files, shared clipboard, larger resolutions, and so on. More info here.

I'm not sure why'd you want to. But I see no reason why you can't unless you don't get a choice where to put them when installing. But the few references I've found say you shouldn't try to run them at the same time as it's not going to work.

[Jason]

If you're thinking you need and older and newer install to support two distros with two different versions of the kernel (4.x or 5.x), it says in the host requirements that you're fine:

It should be possible to use Oracle VM VirtualBox on most systems based on Linux kernel 2.6, 3.x, 4.x or 5.x using either the Oracle VM VirtualBox installer or by doing a manual installation.