lubuntu-qa team mailing list archive

[Ron Mitchell <rm2892@xxxxxxxxx>]

May I comment? (as one who's knowledge of Linux in general and Lubuntu in particular needs a LOT of work). At the tender age of 68, I have recently wondered what I'm doing here.  Seem so far behind. I come from the days when Xfree86 was causing newbies to pull their hair out. Now the system doesn't even generate an xorg.conf file any more, at least not where I was used to finding it.                                                                                                            

What confuses me is that when I volunteered for testing in early August, The Alpha PPC version of Lubuntu was working quite well. Still don't completely understand what changed and why.

I don't know enough about the system to propose solutions. Hopefully that will change over time, but for now, all I'm qualified to do as a tester is tell you what doesn't work. If you need more than that from me, then I'm going to have problems. 

It's certainly true to say that the PPC help  and FAQ files available from Ubuntu have been of immense help. But there is a lot to read, I'm not done yet, and quite frankly some of the material is heavy going, particularly for the newcomer. Some of it is dated, and I have wondered if it's still valid. 

I've appreciated Adam's helpful comments over the past few weeks. I've also appreciated the helpful guidance I've received from Phill, Greg, and Lars. 

It seems I have a wierd PPC machine which accepts none of the standard fixes insofar as Radeon displays are concerned. I know that this has skewed my reporting, and that the few who do own older Mac PPC's are having trouble duplicating the problems I'm getting here. It's also true however, that if you want Lubuntu to work on computers such as mine, with impatient newbies at the keyboard, then I do need to tell you what happens here just to ensure you're aware that somewhere in the world, there's a place where Lubuntu isn't working so well. 

It's a confusing new world I've stepped into. The older I get, the more I sound like a grumpy old Luddite. But in all, it's good to be part of Lubuntu in some small way. You have a good product and the philosophy behind it is worth working for.           

Bear with me guys.

Ron Mitchell






On Wed, 19 Sep 2012 23:16:28 +0100
Phill Whiteside <PhillW@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Hi guys,
> 
> some of you will know Adam who has been looking after a lot of ppc stuff
> (ojordan), he asked that I emplore you guys to read fully the links at the
> bottom of the ppc testing page[1]. As you will realise when you finish the
> below, this has now taken on a much greater importance.
> 
> 
> 
> > Please remind people again to read the PowerPC documentation.  The Ubuntu
> > PowerPC documentation (the FAQ and KnownIssues pages) is the most
> > up-to-date and comprehensive of any PowerPC distro. Failure to read the
> > documentaion is wasting their time, the time of others (importantly Colin
> > Watsons),  causing them to repeatedly miss bugs and generally giving a
> > skewed account of the state of ppc.
> >
> > There are genuine bugs with the PowerPC installs that could be solved with
> > a few minutes of Colin Watsons time (the patches are lined up), yet it is
> > hard to identify these out of the white noise that is the lubuntu-qa team's
> > bugs.  There are also PowerPC Lubuntu specific problems and these have not
> > been addressed or even identified by the qa team.
> >
> > Over the weekend I cleaned up all the bug reports the lubuntu team had
> > made, merged duplicates etc.  I've explained why they are not installing
> > and how they can install.  I've put forward the action I think should be
> > taken to resolve the problem, but since Lubuntu is doing the testing they
> > should be deciding what to do.  Nobody from the team has grasped this.
> >
> > >>>i really need someone to help me with doing it all by usb.
> > >>>that would make it possible for me to do this easily on more than one
> > machine.
> > >>>i can't seem to find anything that isn't as old as hardy and i'm not
> > sure it's relevant.
> > >>>openfirmware is too buggy to rely upon for usb boot. believe me, i've
> > tried.
> >
> > Comments like this from wxl/spam_forwards just show he doesn't read the
> > FAQ.  There is a large section on USB booting.
> >
> > >>>Ok! When there is a kernel upgrade the symlink files (vmlinux,
> > >>>initrd.img and initrd.img.old) are placed to "/" and not to "/boot"
> > >>>(where they should be!).
> > Again, the above as reported by UH was a **huge** bug in 12.04, but the
> > Lubuntu team are oblivious to it.  It was fixed in the end, but if you
> > installed from alpha/beta then you need to alter a config file.  It is
> > documented on the Known Issues page.
> >
> > On a happier note, this guy is very pleased with Lubuntu
> > http://powerpcliberation.blogspot.co.uk/ , so all your effort (and
> > putting up with grumpy people like myself) is worth it.
> >
> > I've updated the PowerPC known issues page with the radeon problem and
> > solutions.  I've gone over the options (again) and I think the current
> > kernel config setup is the best.  The boot message on the CDs could do with
> > improving, but there is just no ideal setup.  The kernel as I understand it
> > (could do with somebody who know what they are talking about on this)
> > reverts to 8 bit framebuffer to save memory for KMS (it didn't used to do
> > this).  The only improvement could be is if the radeonfb framebuffer was
> > set automatically at a higher colour depth (like it used to be).
> >
> > It's down to you guys to take over the Known Issues and Faq pages.  I am
> > not doing 12.10 testing.  I just don't have the time (or put it another way
> > I should be spending time doing other things).  I need to finish building
> > my house, I REALLY need to put it back together what with winter coming.
> >
> > All the best for 12.10
> >
> > Adam
> 
> 
> 
> Regards,
> 
> Phill.
> 1. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Lubuntu/Testing/PPC%26Mac64
> 
> -- 
> https://wiki.ubuntu.com/phillw


-- 
Ron Mitchell <rm2892@xxxxxxxxx>