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Linux Mint 10/Ubuntu 10.10 Logout/Restart/Shutdown problems... where to start?

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  • Linux Mint 10/Ubuntu 10.10 Logout/Restart/Shutdown problems... where to start?

    I'm currently running Linux Mint 10 (Ubuntu 10.10) on my Thinkpad W500 and have encountered an annoying issue... essentially I get an intermittent hang when I attempt to restart or logout.

    This problem has been made more visible as of late possibly due to my screwing around with the hybrid switcheroo configurations (see: http://asusm51ta-with-linux.blogspot.com/ if you dare) but I don't know if this is the root cause... at least I don't recall directly if this problem started only when I made the changes detailed in the switcheroo procedure.

    What is odd is that when I attempt to reboot via an application (in this case the UNetBootin utility) everything seems to work fine, however, attempting to do the same via the desktop "Menu" usually causes a hang.

    Although I've done my best with the details I know the description above is still vague, however, being relatively new to Linux (at least for anything beyond a regular user) I'm not sure where to start in terms of troubleshooting...

    So, in short, where do I start?

  • #2
    What about rebooting by running "reboot" on the terminal? It might spew some error or warning message. Also, it might be worth checking out the logs at /var/log and look for any errors at the time of logout.
    Sometimes hangs during reboot are caused by some process waiting for something that isn't availble. To be more specific, for instance, when trying to unmount a samba/cifs share when the network isn't available.
    It's been a few days since you posted the question. Have you solved it yet?

    Comment


    • #3
      Thanks for the response Devius.

      I did as you suggested, executing "sudo reboot" from the terminal however does not give me any more information (the behavior remains the same, essentially the desktop just "freezes" and I am forced to power cycle the W500).

      Which log in /var/log do you think I should reference?

      It seems there are a number of logs that are modified at or close to reboot, enough that it seems excessive to dump the output of my "ls -l | grep log" onto this post (and I'd imagine the "auth" and "daemon" logs might not have any relevant info)...

      I've been focusing on the "debug" and "dmesg" logs at present but I'm not quite sure what I should be looking for?

      I have to admit, at this point, I'm pretty much resigned to going back to Win7. I've been posting on this issue here, on the Ubuntu support forums, and on Phoronix but outside of you response haven't found much support. This problem, on top of the limitations of Linux on my W500 hardware (the lack of fingerprint scanner and limited webcam drivers are not a big deal losing dynamic hybrid GPU switching stings a bit more), is too much of a functionality hit for me to be able justify staying with Linux much longer. I'm really disappointed as I had my old HP NC8000 working pretty solid with Hardy but, ironically, decided to upgrade as Ubuntu discontinued support for the RV350 GPU in Lucid - and here I am now, being forced back to Win7 due to (among others) GPU issues. It also kind of sucks as I have a side project that I've been working on that uses Xnee and now I'll have to find a workaround.

      Sorry to rant - if you see this post at any point in the near future let me know if you have any kind of sudden epiphany.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by allbread View Post
        I have to admit, at this point, I'm pretty much resigned to going back to Win7. I've been posting on this issue here, on the Ubuntu support forums, and on Phoronix but outside of you response haven't found much support. This problem, on top of the limitations of Linux on my W500 hardware (the lack of fingerprint scanner and limited webcam drivers are not a big deal losing dynamic hybrid GPU switching stings a bit more), is too much of a functionality hit for me to be able justify staying with Linux much longer. I'm really disappointed as I had my old HP NC8000 working pretty solid with Hardy but, ironically, decided to upgrade as Ubuntu discontinued support for the RV350 GPU in Lucid - and here I am now, being forced back to Win7 due to (among others) GPU issues. It also kind of sucks as I have a side project that I've been working on that uses Xnee and now I'll have to find a workaround.

        Sorry to rant - if you see this post at any point in the near future let me know if you have any kind of sudden epiphany.
        Correction... I've posted on the Ubuntu and Mint* forums... forgot which forum I was on

        Comment


        • #5
          Do you really need ubuntu or mint? I know everybody loves ubuntu, but all the hardware related problems I had with linux were with ubuntu. Fedora, openSUSE and Arch have all been pleasant experiences compared to Ubuntu. Does this problem occur with other distros? Have you tried a liveCD/USB? If you prefer Gnome, Fedora would be a good distro to try, or even the gnome flavoured openSUSE.

          Comment


          • #6
            About the logs, I don't really remember the naming conventions of Ubuntu, but the interesting ones may be something similar to Xorg.0.log, errors.log and messages.log. There may also be a everything.log that has all the messages of all the logs in one place. If you look at Xorg.0.log you should be looking for the lines that start with (EE) which are errors; (II) are just informative messages and probably not relevant to your problem and (WW) are warnings, which could be relevant or not.

            Comment


            • #7
              Thanks again for your feedback.

              Linux = Ubuntu for me, at least, it's the only disto I've really ever played with outside of an abortive attempt to install SuSE on an old powerbook 10+ years ago; indeed, even just venturing to Mint 10 was a "big" step. I've gotten pretty accustomed (and perhaps a bit spoiled) with apt-get and the Ubuntu repository. I know also that the driver/functionality issues I am experiencing will likely remain consistent regardless of the distro I choose.

              I installed Ubuntu 10.10 proper on my W500 a couple nights ago - I know that this is pretty much the equivalent of the Mint 10 install I was struggling with earlier but I figure it can't hurt to give it a shot. I'm not seeing the reboot issue just yet - at least this time round I can try and determine if the "switcheroo" hybrid GPU hack might be at the root of the issue as opposed to the distro itself.

              Comment


              • #8
                Originally posted by allbread View Post
                I installed Ubuntu 10.10 proper on my W500 a couple nights ago - I know that this is pretty much the equivalent of the Mint 10 install I was struggling with earlier but I figure it can't hurt to give it a shot. I'm not seeing the reboot issue just yet - at least this time round I can try and determine if the "switcheroo" hybrid GPU hack might be at the root of the issue as opposed to the distro itself.

                BTW, the hybrid GPU "switcheroo" I keep referring to is here. I did run though the install procedure on my laptop prior to encountering this issue but as this was pretty much the first thing I did after installing Mint 10 I cannot say for sure if this was the cause or if it was something else.

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by allbread View Post
                  I know also that the driver/functionality issues I am experiencing will likely remain consistent regardless of the distro I choose.
                  Granted, I am assuming* that Intel's dynamic hybrid GPU switching is not supported by Linux proper, regardless of the distro and likewise for the fingerprint reader. I haven't been able to find anything that indicates otherwise - I guess I'm under the assumption that there is no open-source driver equivalent for either of these at present.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    Originally posted by allbread View Post
                    Granted, I am assuming* that Intel's dynamic hybrid GPU switching is not supported by Linux proper, regardless of the distro and likewise for the fingerprint reader. I haven't been able to find anything that indicates otherwise
                    A search for "linux fingerprint reader" on google returned a bunch of results for me. Some examples:



                    About the switcheroo there's a thread right here in phoronix:


                    Originally posted by allbread View Post
                    I guess I'm under the assumption that there is no open-source driver equivalent for either of these at present.
                    Both the switcheroo and the fingerprint-reader driver are open-source.

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