Ubuntu 19.10 gnome problems

[Jason]

Can I assume that the 4.15 series is still getting security patches because the LTS is still being supported? What about the 5.0 kernel, given that Ubuntu 19.04 is no longer supported?

Yes, 4.15 is still getting security patches otherwise I'd be concerned about our PLUG server (it's running 18.04.x LTS). For those that installed 18.04.3 as a fresh install, they actually installed the series 5.0 kernel. I can do this on our PLUG server but it's an extra step and I don't see any benefit. There's more about kernel releases straight from the horse's mouth here.

As for 19.04, while it is only officially supported until January 2020, the series 5.0 kernel will continue to be updated elsewhere (like in the 19.10 release). It's just not something that happens automatically (and obviously not supported generally). I can't speak to the 5.0 release specifically as we're already up to 5.3.0-24 in 19.10 but I'm guessing you meant 5.x.

[fox]

Yes, 4.15 is still getting security patches otherwise I'd be concerned about our PLUG server (it's running 18.04.x LTS). For those that installed 18.04.3 as a fresh install, they actually installed the series 5.0 kernel. I can do this on our PLUG server but it's an extra step and I don't see any benefit. There's more about kernel releases straight from the horse's mouth here.

As for 19.04, while it is only officially supported until January 2020, the series 5.0 kernel will continue to be updated elsewhere (like in the 19.10 release). It's just not something that happens automatically (and obviously not supported generally). I can't speak to the 5.0 release specifically as we're already up to 5.3.0-24 in 19.10 but I'm guessing you meant 5.x.

OK, so just to ask another, possibly stupid, question, if I install the latest 4.15 kernel, could there be software that is part of 19.10 that wouldn't work as a result (e.g., version of LibreOffice installed in 19.10)? And when you say that the 5.0 kernel isn't updated automatically, do you mean that if I install it, I will have to check the repos periodically to see if there has been an update?

[Jason]

OK, so just to ask another, possibly stupid, question, if I install the latest 4.15 kernel, could there be software that is part of 19.10 that wouldn't work as a result (e.g., version of LibreOffice installed in 19.10)?

There are no stupid questions, just stupid answers. Although it's possible some other program could rely on a specific kernel version (other than the startup packages associated with the kernel). I can't think of any example other than very specific, and binary drivers. Nvidia drivers used to be tied to kernel versions (or at least those in a series) - I have no idea if this is still the case. I don't think it is.

And when you say that the 5.0 kernel isn't updated automatically, do you mean that if I install it, I will have to check the repos periodically to see if there has been an update?

I meant that comment specifically for 19.04 which is almost EOL. I meant that you could probably install a newer series kernel 5.0 series on 19.04 even after it's no longer supported. If you're using 19.10, you will continue to get newer kernel releases.

And do you have to worry about it with 18.04 which is updated until 2023. However, if I want to use a series 5.0 kernel in 18.04, I have to install the kernel-hwe package to do that and after that it will be updated along with the usual updates.

I hope that's clearer than mud. 

[fox]

Last night I updated a 2012 Mac mini from Ubuntu 19.04 to 19.10. The 5.0 latest kernel was left after the update, so I was able to see, in a very limited way, how 19.10 runs with that kernel. I experienced no freezing, but the test was way too limited to determine if the kernel has anything to do with the freezing I am experiencing on my 2011 iMac running with the Gnome desktop. But one thing I was able to determine is that the update resulted in the cut and paste problems I have reported elsewhere. That was clear: no cut and paste problem before the 19.10 update; problem after the update. So this rules out any cause of the kernel  and makes the major suspect Gnome 3.34. There is some support for this hypothesis in this posting about copy/paste in Fedora 31, although the person posting was running Gnome under Wayland and I have to use xorg on this computer.

[Jason]

Last night I updated a 2012 Mac mini from Ubuntu 19.04 to 19.10. The 5.0 latest kernel was left after the update, so I was able to see, in a very limited way, how 19.10 runs with that kernel.

For anybody else that might experience the same issues, can you mention the exact kernel release that you're using? Typing this command in the terminal will give you that information without having to enter your package manager:

uname -r

So this rules out any cause of the kernel  and makes the major suspect Gnome 3.34. There is some support for this hypothesis in this posting about copy/paste in Fedora 31, although the person posting was running Gnome under Wayland and I have to use xorg on this computer.

I suspect you're right although it might not be Gnome itself but instead a backend library used for Gnome. I mention this in a moment.

It probably doesn't matter that he's using Wayland and that you're using X.org for this bug. Both of these are display servers that handle the lower level stuff such as drawing boxes on the screen. I don't think they handle copy/paste functions with the mouse or keyboard which are handled by the desktop environment (i.e. Gnome). I could be wrong.

Did you follow the mentioned link to gitlab? It looks like the copy/paste problem was a confirmed bug in GTK that has been fixed. Since that's the basis of most Gnome programs and the core especially, that could be the issue. It would also explain why it happened in some apps and not others. I don't know if that fix has been rolled out yet, though. It only says that it has been merged into the gtk source. Have you checked that there weren't more updates after the upgrade?

I pulled up Muon (a synaptic-like package manager that looks similar to synaptic) and the copy issue was noted as fixed in the changelog for a previous update to libgtk-3-common although this was back in August. But not everything necessarily makes it into the changelog and according to gitlab that fix was merged 2 weeks ago. The last update I have for gtk was Oct. 7, but I'm also not using Gnome so it might not be a priority for Kubuntu.

Regarding the freeze-ups, that could be an issue with the particular video drivers used. I don't recall the particulars now but I seem to remember that one of your Macs had two sets of video, integrated and a separate nvidia card built into it. You could confirm this issue by seeing if there is a way to turn off the integrated video in UEFI or whatever it's called on a Mac. You don't want to do without the nvideo driver chipset/driver, screen updates would slow to a crawl on a high resolution display.

[fox]

The kernel I'm using right now is 5.3.0-24-generic, but any earlier version of 5.3 in the Ubuntu respositories will have the problem, and the version of 5.0 that I tried on Ubuntu 19.10 (5.0.0-27-generic) has the problem as well.

I hadn't checked the gitlab link until you posted it (thanks!). So it looks like a fix is in the works, but it clearly hasn't arrived yet because I check for updates almost daily.

The video on this iMac is a Radeon, but I'm not using a proprietary driver. Other computers that have the copy/paste problem are using Intel integrated video. I don't have any computer that I know of with options for using integrated vs video card.

[Jason]

The video on this iMac is a Radeon, but I'm not using a proprietary driver. Other computers that have the copy/paste problem are using Intel integrated video. I don't have any computer that I know of with options for using integrated vs video card.

I wasn't talking about checking that to fix your copy/paste problem but to fix the random freezing issue you have.

The freezes could be related to video drivers, especially since you have hybrid video on the iMac, if they're happening on the iMac. Sorry if I got that wrong. And we might have had this conversation before. I don't recall. I'm too lazy right now to look.

What I was concerned about, even though it's likely using the radeon driver because it's a 4K display, is that both drivers are enabled at the same time. You can check this by seeing if there is another video output. And if so, plug another display into it. If it works as another display then you may have both drivers enabled at the same time. That might be fine for the Apple OS but might trip Linux up. I say, may because the radeon driver might be adding the external display. It doesn't matter that you haven't installed a proprietary driver. It's not likely the base integrated video that is running your 4K display so there must be another one that was automatically installed.

Also, if you can, try switching to Wayland if you're using X.org or vice-versa just to rule out that foundation as the problem for the freezing.

[fox]

....
What I was concerned about, even though it's likely using the radeon driver because it's a 4K display, is that both drivers are enabled at the same time. You can check this by seeing if there is another video output. And if so, plug another display into it. If it works as another display then you may have both drivers enabled at the same time. That might be fine for the Apple OS but might trip Linux up. I say, may because the radeon driver might be adding the external display. It doesn't matter that you haven't installed a proprietary driver. It's not likely the base integrated video that is running your 4K display so there must be another one that was automatically installed.

Also, if you can, try switching to Wayland if you're using X.org or vice-versa just to rule out that foundation as the problem for the freezing.

This iMac isn't a 4k display; it's 2560 x 1440. I can't use Wayland on it; it goes blank after the initial boot sequence.

How can I determine if I have two video drivers running simultaneously? Even if I do, why the problem now? I never had it on this machine until I upgraded to 19.10.

[Jason]

This iMac isn't a 4k display; it's 2560 x 1440. I can't use Wayland on it; it goes blank after the initial boot sequence.

How can I determine if I have two video drivers running simultaneously? Even if I do, why the problem now? I never had it on this machine until I upgraded to 19.10.

Thanks for the correction. I'm not sure the non-radeon drivers could even have handled that but I might be wrong. Why now? Drivers change from one release to the next and often the hardware detection routines change so it may not have picked up on it. I don't know. Just spit balling.

I made a suggestion about how to possibly test this if you have a video output jack.

[fox]

....
I made a suggestion about how to possibly test this if you have a video output jack.

Assuming I can do this at all, I'm not clear what I would look for with a second display plugged in.

At any rate, because of these problems I hadn't used Gnome in a week. I came back to it this morning and had one immediate problem: keyboard wasn't working. I logged out and back in and the keyboard worked but I got a freeze. That was enough for me; I didn't become a Linux convert to do alpha testing. I rebooted into Cinnamon and everything is OK. I mean everything. No copy/paste problem, no freezing, keyboard functions. This has to be a gnome issue. Whether it's a library or a video driver, it only happens in gnome. I will continue to check for and install updates, and will try gnome again when I see gnome-related updates.

[Jason]

Assuming I can do this at all, I'm not clear what I would look for with a second display plugged in.

It was to check if one video driver disables the other video driver or they function at the same time. On my PC, I can use onboard or my nvidia card, not both. The nVidia card automatically disables the onboard video (i.e. overrides it) but if I want to there is a BIOS setting that lets me choose which I want to use and the other is disabled. That's why I also asked if there was a way for you to do that.

That's really odd with the copy/paste and now keyboard issues you're having. Did you have a second keyboard you could try? In any case these bugs must be very specific to Gnome and the the kind of hardware within Apple machines or there'd be a million articles online about it.

To be clear, I never said it wasn't a Gnome issue with the copy/paste problems. I'm just saying the copy/paste bug is probably isolated specifically to a gtk library that is used.

Probably be just easier to use another Linux distro until/if it's resolved as it sounds like you're suggesting. You might also want to stick with LTS releases (of any distro) if you're not feeling particularly explorative. With a new release every 6 months, things can break in Ubuntu especially on hardware that probably isn't tested all that much. You might be the only North American computer user who has Linux on their Mac! ;-)

[fox]

....
Probably be just easier to use another Linux distro until/if it's resolved as it sounds like you're suggesting. ....

To be clear, the issue isn't the distro; it's the desktop environment. Cinnamon on Ubuntu 19.10 is fine; no problems of any sort. That's what I'm using now.

[Jason]

Yeah, I got that. What I meant was to use a different distro to get another environment. Although, can you install Cinnamon on Ubuntu?

It would be more instructive if you tried another distro with the exact same version of Gnome just to see what happens, perhaps Ubuntu Gnome? Or Fedora or OpenSUSE with Gnome?

[fox]

I have Cinnamon installed on otherwise vanilla Ubuntu 19.10; that is what I'm using now. One interesting thing I noticed is that when I looked at Cinnamon in Synaptic, it came up with a Gnome 3.32 library. The current version of Gnome in Ubuntu 19.10 is 3.34; that of Ubuntu 19.04 is 3.32. This is stronger evidence that my problems in Ubuntu 19.10 are being caused by the updated version of Gnome that's installed with it. I suppose I could test this by installing the latest version of Fedora, which would also be using Gnome 3.34, but that's more trouble than I'm willing to go to since I have a working solution with the Cinnamon desktop.

[buster]

I have been following this thread with interest Fox and have 3 comments -

#1. You obviously have far too much time on your hands since you retired.
#2. You and I should grab a beer sometime, and discuss some activities that will use your talents in a more meaningful way than getting a Gnome system that doesn't want to work to perform flawlessly.
#3. Since you like to fix things, I'd like to send to your place a toaster that doesn't pop up, a shovel that can probably be repaired, and a timer that has sticky buttons.

Your friend, Buster