Linux Mint 12?… I’ll stick with Ubuntu
I have for many releases (since Mint 6 or 7) been a Linux Mint user. Previous to that I was an Ubuntu user (since 6.06 Dapper). I switched from Ubuntu to Mint for a number of reasons. The cleaner designer and generally better theme. The MintMenu which I found worked very well and far better than the standard and rather dated Gnome menu’s in Ubuntu. Also Mint was more stable than Ubuntu despite being forked from it. I switched across my desktop and laptops, as well as my parent’s desktop and laptop. During all of this time I often played around with other interfaces, (Avant Window Navigator being my favourite) but generally stuck with Gnome2. This all changed when Ubuntu/Mint progression came to a crossroads…the switch to Gnome3 or Unity from the trusty old Gnome2.
Getting nautilus-actions To Work In Ubuntu Natty
I recently upgraded to Ubuntu 11.04 (Natty), which hasn’t been the smoothest upgrade. One issue I found is that nautilus-actions, the handy context menu extender, no longer works for the actions I have (Shred and video conversion for the Samsung YP-P2). After a bit of googling around I’ve managed to find a fix and update the configs for my existing actions.
Running Mediatomb in Ubuntu with JS Support
Since Ubuntu Karmic 9.10, Mediatomb comes compiled without JavaScript support in the Ubuntu repositories. This is annoying as it removes one of the most powerful tools in Mediatomb, in that you can script how your media is imported via JavaScript functions. This is because of the reliance Mediatomb has on the “libmozjs” package which has, since 9.10, been removed from Ubuntu. It has been raised in Launchpad as a bug and discussed, but without a fix being officially published. Having given up waiting (now 3 releases, 12 months…!) for a fix, I decided to set about a solution myself.
Ubuntu 10.10/11.04 Freezing on Battery Power – Fix!
* Update 23/08/2011 – in the comments below Carl Parkinson has an interesting fix that doesn’t require reverting the pm-utils package. It may be worth trying it first before doing the below.
I wrote a post several months back regarding a problem with my Dell Studio 15 laptop (with ATI graphics and Broadcom wireless adapter) and Ubuntu 10.10. When running the laptop from the mains all was well. However, if I unplugged the charger, and ran the laptop from the battery (as designed!) it would freeze within a couple of minutes. At the time I reverted back to Ubuntu 9.10.
Another release on (11.04) and the problem still exists! Something I find quite shocking as it’s a show-stopping bug. Thankfully after googling around I found a simple fix, in that most people suggest downgrading the pm-utils package to the “Lucid” 9.10 version.
Ubuntu does it again – more freezes
* I am now running Ubuntu 11.04 and the issue is still occurring. Disabling power saving of the wireless card (via iwconfig) seems to improve the problem slightly, but the system still freezes too much for it to be acceptable.
** FIX – as mentioned by Jason in the comments, downgrading to pm-utils 1.3 has solved the problem for me. Simply adding “deb http://us.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid main” as a repository source, then in Synaptic Package Manager “forcing” the version of pm-utils to 1.3.x, and finally locking the package.
I upgraded to Ubuntu 10.10 a couple of months ago. This was done across five systems…two desktops, and three laptops. Only three were truly successful though, two of the systems have quite serious issues that make them almost un-usable. Both of these systems have been stable for quite some time on older versions of Ubuntu, so these issues are regressions bugs introduced into the latest Ubuntu (or Linux kernel).
The issue seems to centre around power management. A bug was raised half a year ago, but little progress seems to have been made on it. On my laptop, a Dell Studio 15, it freezes within 30 minutes when using battery power and requires a full power off/on. On my desktop, a custom build Intel Core 2 quad core, it freezes when going into standby. This means I can barely use my laptop when on battery, or leave my desktop for any pre-longed periods of time.