I put a fresh install of tumbleweed in after changing back from ubuntu. (had to try it). Tumbleweed worked fine before and with a fresh install it still does. However after the fresh install there a numerous updates and this is where the problems begin.
I am not sure if it’s plasma, KDE or what is being affected but what happens is, I cannot open Dolphin in plain or admin mode, I cannot reboot my laptop. My open windows do not look the same, buttons are square, Yast is in 2 columns, it just goes kooky. No additional programs installed, no other repositories, just a plain install. Not sure if things have changed in the past month with opensuse, KDE, QT4/5 or where this would be coming from but I cannot get Tumbleweed to work properly like it did before. Back to 13.2 till I can get this resolved
Can anyone shed some light on what the problem might be?
We usually need a little bit more system/hardware information:
CPU;
RAM (4GB - 8GB - whatever);
Graphics/Video (AMD; nVidia; Intel; whatever);
Disk (500 GB; 1TB; whatever);
possibly: Motherboard.
Further information such as the disk partitioning can also sometimes help – single ext4 partition; Leap standard (BtrFS system partition and XFS user partition); whatever.
[HR][/HR]Having said all that, later posts indicate that you do seem to have Tumbleweed up and running.
Yes, I switched to the Gnome Desktop and it seems to run a bit better with exceptions… but not anything that I am concerned with, I found other software that works better then the pre-installed video/music players. I do like KDE better because you can configure more things to personal tastes but I will have to wait until I get a better laptop. My 64bit HP died and I am on an old HP Compaq nc6220. I have 998 meg ram and a 30 gig HD. Pathetic I know LOL.
I can run OS without any issue on a system with 1 GB system RAM, but at least it has a dual-core processor. I have installed Tumbleweed on a couple old laptops, all with multi-core AMD CPU’s and at least 2 GB RAM.
One thing I have found after numerous installations and reinstallations is that EXT4 is the more reliable choice for old hardware. I would also note that a minimum 2 GB system memory is desirable for the older laptops since it minimizes, or eliminates, swap.
Even 2 gig may be short if you really push memory usage. Back when I only had 2 gig FF would fail if I had a VM open just used up memory. FF uses a ton of memory for each tab
LOL, yes, that is a big issue for me too with things running really slow.
I do think the problem is with GTK if that is what changed the look of the windows. It seems when openSuse does it’s 400+ upgrades after a fresh install, all my windows change in look. They look like a MS Windows desktop window. I can no longer log out and have to use the power button to restart the system and when I do I only get a command prompt, no desktop. Then I end up reinstalling Tumbleweed to get everything back and the vicious cycle begins all over LOL.
Even thought I like KDE better, I have switched to GNOME and Tumbleweed is working good. Slow, but good. I would just go back to 13.2 with KDE which worked good as well but for some reason Tumbleweed makes my graphics look better and also I cannot get Inkscape to work with KDE. Kinda liking Gnome a bit better with the exception KDE has better capabilities of changing the look. Of course, 13.2 seemed to have more options and availability than Tumbleweed. I was going to try Leap but it’s only for 64 bit and all I have atm is 32.
No question that virtual machines will need additional free memory.
The OP is struggling with very limited hardware. I have an old Toshiba notebook given me by a friend when he found it useless when he “upgraded” from Win 7 to Win 10. It has the puny Intel Atom CPU and 2 GB RAM. For this hardware I found Linux Mint 17.3 Mate (32-bit) the best performer after replacing the HD with an SSD. It is still a bit sluggish, but at least I no longer have to take a coffee break while waiting for an app to open. A Toshiba laptop with Intel Centrino CPU with 2.5 GB RAM and an SSD runs OS 13.1 (32-bit) with gusto.
As I mentioned, I think a multi-core CPU is essential for any decent performance. A 2.2 GHz Pentium with 2 GB RAM runs OS 13.1 noticeably slower than the same OS on an 1.7 GHz Intel dual-core CPU with only 1 GB RAM.
Yes, I am using EXT4 for the install. BTRFS was giving me problems previously with using up too much hard drive space.
I think there is something in the updates that my little system does not like because of it not being very powerful. I had Tumbleweed KDE on it before and it was working fine. This all started after trying another OS and then coming back to openSuse. I tried ubuntu for about a month. I didn’t like it so I put openSuse back in and that is where the trouble started. I formatted the entire hard drive when I installed openSuse so that none of ubuntu was left on the drive.
Hi
Just to clarify, btrfs is not the issue, it’s the lack of configuring (or disabling) snapper and snapshots on small disks/partitions hence the disk usage. With Tumbleweed you need to ensure a snapper clean up before a zypper dup.
If you were using btrfs and configured to only keep a couple of snapshots, at least you could then rollback if something goes haywire. No need to re-install, which by the looks you need to do if using ext4…
I have SLED 11 SP4 (btrfs fs) dual booting with XP running on a DELL Inspiron pentium-m 32bit cpu, 1.25GB of RAM and 60GB disk, it’s sluggish, but works with it’s serial port which is all I need, heck even compiz works…
Using ext4 was a suggestion in another post when I was using KDE. There were a lot of temp files that were not being cleaned and someone had shown me a way to clean them up and what to set and where. However I was still losing a lot of HD space so I used his other suggestion of changing the file system from btrfs to ext4 and that seemed to be a good solution for my space issues.
The problem for this thread is why KDE keeps crashing on me when I do updates. As mentioned in a previous post, my menus change after the 400+ updates openSuse does after a fresh install.
I was using Tumbleweed with KDE about 2-3 months ago (also with ext4) and things worked fine, slow with this laptop but they worked. Now, after this fresh install, the updates change the look of the windows, I cannot log off, when I reboot the laptop I have no desktop just a command prompt.
At this point, having switched to Gnome and things working well, not sure I am going to try to go back until I get a new, more powerful, laptop. Then when that happens I will need help getting Inkscape to work on KDE, I could have sworn I had that running on KDE before, but for some reason it will not show up, that is the reason I am using Gnome now.
Hi
With tumbleweed since it’s bleeding edge, hard to say, RAM would definitely be an issue. If you have to re-install, then I do suggest select a custom install and switch to lxde or xfce it should be a lot more tolerant to 1GB of RAM.
I will try it should I have to do another install in this laptop. Gnome seems to be working well (for the most part) so not going to fool with it anymore lol.
I do remember this though… at 1st, these issues were only happening when I installed kTorrent. So after that crashed my system I didn’t install it. Then it was the auto updates that did it.
Does Linux leave things on the hard drive even after a format? I wouldn’t think so but you never know.
Hi
Well if the partitions stay the same it does leave some snippets of information, note be careful with this command [wipefs] !!! make sure you ONLY use the -n option!!!
lsblk
NAME MAJ:MIN RM SIZE RO TYPE MOUNTPOINT
sda 8:0 0 111.8G 0 disk
├─sda1 8:1 0 260M 0 part /boot/efi
├─sda2 8:2 0 40G 0 part /
├─sda3 8:3 0 40G 0 part
├─sda4 8:4 0 8G 0 part [SWAP]
└─sda5 8:5 0 23.5G 0 part /data
wipefs --help
Usage:
wipefs [options] <device>
Wipe signatures from a device.
Options:
-a, --all wipe all magic strings (BE CAREFUL!)
-b, --backup create a signature backup in $HOME
-f, --force force erasure
-h, --help show this help text
-n, --no-act do everything except the actual write() call
-o, --offset <num> offset to erase, in bytes
-p, --parsable print out in parsable instead of printable format
-q, --quiet suppress output messages
-t, --types <list> limit the set of filesystem, RAIDs or partition tables
-V, --version output version information and exit
For more details see wipefs(8).
wipefs -n /dev/sda
offset type
----------------------------------------------------------------
0x200 gpt [partition table]
wipefs -n /dev/sda1
offset type
----------------------------------------------------------------
0x36 vfat [filesystem]
UUID: 3B26-12D8
wipefs -n /dev/sda2
offset type
----------------------------------------------------------------
0x10040 btrfs [filesystem]
LABEL: sled12sp2b5
UUID: 84ad15d7-df83-4541-8810-b7f1608f9b41
wipefs -n /dev/sda3
offset type
----------------------------------------------------------------
0x10040 btrfs [filesystem]
LABEL: tumbleweed
UUID: 4a3dcdd5-1bfb-4102-85fb-fbeb36437006
wipefs -n /dev/sda4
offset type
----------------------------------------------------------------
0xff6 swap [other]
LABEL: swap
UUID: 3c7f97f5-e0aa-48e8-abe8-ed102a93680b
wipefs -n /dev/sda5
offset type
----------------------------------------------------------------
0x0 xfs [filesystem]
LABEL: data
UUID: 7fb88820-9e3e-415c-9559-839932b9a098
Normally if I’m cleaning a disk, I boot from a rescue USB device, then use the -a option to really wipe out the info and repartition from scratch, esp if changing filesystems. The wipefs command is also good on the live usb to cleanout the hybrid partitions etc so it can be used for other purposes, eg data.
Maybe that is the problem… I just used the install disk to erase and create the new partitions. Since I used the same type of drive and partitions, maybe it kept some information. However I did use the same when I installed Gnome but maybe since it is a different desktop it didn’t matter.
My Toshiba laptop has the same CPU and video. I added RAM = 2.5 GB. (One SODIMM is easy to access; the other requires completely gutting the laptop to access.) As I mentioned, this runs 32-bit Linux Mint 17.3 and OS 13.1 nicely. I don’t have 32-bit Tumbleweed running on anything so I cannot point to anything that may be peculiar to it vice the 64-bit version.
An SSD will also improve performance dramatically. (Just don’t buy one from Crucial. Their RAM is top notch, but not their SSD’s.)
I was looking over the page that has the stats for this, this one must be the lower end model, my graphics only go up to 1024x768. Most web pages scroll left to right… I have a few things on Craigslist I am trying to sell, once they sell I am just going to get a new laptop… this one was free that someone was going to scrap. I invested in a power cord for it that was 6.00 and it has been running pretty good for an older machine. I miss having a wide screen and really miss the 17" monitor I use to have. My graphics went out on the other HP I had and since it is built into the mother board, it would have been a pain to replace. Just replacing the cooling fan in that was a pain. I have seen some decent laptops under 500.00, not powerhouses or anything, but much better than this LOL. Even the HP DV-7 that died on me was only 800.00. That was a decent laptop… I miss it lol.
Thanks again for the link. I may invest another 30.00 in this one since I may have it a bit longer. Hell, even if I get a new one this would make a good back up or 2nd laptop for basic things.
I also have a HP DV-7 (AMD Turion X2) I found in a pawn shop. I got it for under $150 since its battery was dead. Since it already had 4 GB of on-board RAM, all I needed was to install an SSD and boot Linux Mint 17.3 and Tumbleweed. I liked this computer for its 17" screen and having real keys instead of the “chiclets” now used universally.
It may be worth your while to scour local pawn shops or small computer shops. Old laptops that are all but useless with Win 10 are quite capable with Linux. As I mentioned, I look for AMD CPU’s since this invariably means ATI video. I do not care to have to recompile video drivers after every kernel update.
The older computers I look for have access covers so it is easy to upgrade RAM and hard drives. Contemporary laptops now require removal of 20+ small screws and the entire bottom cover. (One exception is some current Dell laptops.)
You mentioned giving up on Ubuntu. Let me suggest Linux Mint 17.3 Mate. This version has a “light” desktop that does not hog resources like KDE. I dual-boot Linux Mint and Tumbleweed. (I install Tumbleweed after Mint so I use its bootloader, which looks nicer.)
I will double check the ram I have now, not sure if there is 1 or 2 in there that make up the 1gig that I have. I may have to replace both to get the 2 gig. I may look at changing out the 30gig HD as well. It seems ok at the moment but I can fill a hard drive pretty quick.
Yes, I will check out the local pawn shops and we have a small computer shop not that far from us too. I do graphic design so I do need to get something with a bit of power to it, at least I did when running windows. Video editing can take up a lot of resources. I will also look into Mint, although not really sure the difference between linux companies, I would think that linux is linux… but I honestly don’t know… I have been seeing a few differences with the info I find in google with installing programs from unbutu, debian and others… so maybe there is a difference in the linux itself.
Thanks again for the help. This forum has proven very helpful for me. Everyone here has been great!!!
