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+--- Thread: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. (/showthread.php?tid=24526)
Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - kdemeoz - 11th July 2017
Today i updated my Tower from 17.03 to 17.06, via Update Manager. Sadly, i now feel disappointed after a couple of months of anticipation & hope. There's several problems i've experienced ever since i converted my Lappy & Tower to Maui last year; these have persisted continually from 1 to 2 to 2.1 to 17.03, & now regrettably to 17.06.
Until nearly a month ago, i had assumed that these were endemic to Plasma5 [ie, ALL Plasma5 DEs, irrespective of distro]. My old Mint 17.3 KDE4 never did these, & my only Plasma5 experience on-SSD has been Maui [until recently]. I have multiple alternative Plasma5 distros installed in VMs, as well as Maui in some VMs too, but none of these can be relied on as indicators of comparative Plasma5 stability because even Maui in VMs behaves itself. It's only when Maui is the actual on-SSD Host OS [ie, real life OS], that all these bad things happen.
As i said, til recently i was blaming Plasma5, not Maui... but now i know that it is not Plasma5's fault. What proved this to me was when i changed from Maui 17.03 to openSUSE Tumbleweed KDE on my Lappy, last month. As i wrote here https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread.php?tid=24355&pid=43182#pid43182, "with TW i am getting an even better Plasma5 experience". My TW experience has been always with Plasma 5.10.x [currently .3, but was .1 then .2], & i have been desperately hoping that once Maui also came to 5.10.x, its Plasma reliability would become as great for me as it is in TW.
Alas, now my Tower has 17.06/5.10.2, & none of the problems is fixed. I'm disappointed. These are the chronic issues:
1. KWin continues to crash on me whenever i display the Desktop Grid, then drag a window from one VD to another... IF as soon as i've dropped the window into its new VD i end the DG by clicking any individual VD, then KWin behaves, but if i delay even a fraction of a second, it crashes. I wrote about this here https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread.php?tid=23982&pid=39421#pid39421, & since then there's been a LOT of water under the bridge, eg: Compositor alternatives GL2 vs GL3.1 gives no sustainable fix; back then i was using a NVidia GPU but now i use only the internal Intel GPU & the crashes continue; kernels 4.4.x & 4.8.x make no difference; previous clean reinstallations of Tower's Maui have not helped; before i converted Lappy to TW it exhibited the same crashes as Tower. NOTHING has cured this nasty problem, & it exasperates me.
2. Activities are largely useless to me in Maui. I've learned my lesson from bitter experience; there's simply no point bothering to try using Activities the way KDE intended, eg, dedicating different Activities to different sets of windows/pgms/docs. Each time i have tried, ever since using Maui, clean boots [with Startup & Shutdown Options set to use last session] randomly mix my carefully arranged windows across my various Activities, AND after every KWin crash, all windows appear in all Activities. Grrrr.
3. KWin Desktop Effects Screen Edges frequently "forget" to work, especially after any KWin crash, but occasionally randomly even if KWin has not crashed.
On my Lappy, using TW, NONE of these problems exist - Plasma5 behaves there like it is bullet-proof, It is so refreshing to use, in comparison.
Please, can anyone suggest what else i can try, to once & for all end this chronic Maui Plasma5 fragility on my Tower? As stated, after my nice TW exposure on Lappy, i'd hoped that 5.10.x itself was going to be the solution for Maui, but now i know that's untrue. Unless i can solve this, now that i know there's a robust Plasma5 KWin experience available for me elsewhere, i fear that i will have to sadly replace Tower's Maui with TW as well.
Fingers crossed someone can pinpoint the solution pls.
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - leszek - 11th July 2017
It sounds like a graphics driver issue. Maybe an upgrade of the X-Server might help.
Have you tried that already ? https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread.php?tid=24285&pid=41758#pid41758
You could also try booting the live system of Maui 17.06 to see if you can reproduce the issues there.
Maybe some config or cache files are getting in the way.
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - kdemeoz - 11th July 2017
(11th July 2017, 14:38)leszek Wrote: It sounds like a graphics driver issue. Maybe an upgrade of the X-Server might help.
Have you tried that already ? https://forums.mauilinux.org/showthread.php?tid=24285&pid=41758#pid41758
Well, yes, of course... did you not see my various posts in that same thread you linked? As i said in post #14, i did that upgrade back on 24/2/17, & this is its [= Tower] status right now btw:
Furthermore, as i wrote in this current new thread, when Lappy still ran Maui it suffered the same KWin crashes when doing the same actions that i wrote about in this thread for Tower, yet now with it running Tumbleweed not Maui, Lappy [same hardware as before] is rock-solid. So that's 2 separate PCs with the same unpleasant experience.
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - leszek - 11th July 2017
I was not sure if you were still running that setup.
Anyways if opensuse works it only can be either kernel or xserver. If you have both on the same version as on opensuse it should behave the same way. That's for the crashes at least.
The rest sounds like being a consequence of kwin crashing. Like losing its settings and such.
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - kdemeoz - 11th July 2017
(11th July 2017, 15:30)leszek Wrote: I was not sure if you were still running that setup.
Anyways if opensuse works it only can be either kernel or xserver. If you have both on the same version as on opensuse it should behave the same way. That's for the crashes at least.
The rest sounds like being a consequence of kwin crashing. Like losing its settings and such.
Hmmm, well Lappy's oS TW is on a later kernel [4.11.x], but i never bothered with xserver-xorg-hwe-16.04 on that; i just used TW "out of the box".
Back in Tower, just a few moments ago, i logged into a 2nd user account [which i'd previously not configured, ie, presumably its Plasma settings were standard default [not the heavily personalised ones of my main account]. So i then also just now did configure its Desktop Effects & Screen Edges... then triggered the Desktop Grid view, & moved a window to another VD. KWin crashed... identical symptoms. Sigh.
I have not downloaded the 17.06 ISO - as i wrote, i did the upgrade of 17.03 with Update Manager, so i don't have a 17.06 LiveUSB. But say i choose to boot from my existing 17.03 Live USB, then setup its KWin config analogous to my real Maui, & test again with DG & dragging windows. If it does crash, then what would that prove? Oppositely, if it does not crash, then as you said it would imply my real Plasma config is bad... but then what?
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - kdemeoz - 11th July 2017
(11th July 2017, 14:38)leszek Wrote: You could also try booting the live system of Maui 17.06 to see if you can reproduce the issues there.
Maybe some config or cache files are getting in the way.
Right, i'm posting this back in Tower's "real" Maui again, having just finished testing your other suggestion; booting from LiveUSB [but 17.03 not 17.06]. I configured its Desktop Effects & Screen Edges [9 VDs, as usual]... then triggered the Desktop Grid view, & moved a window to another VD. KWin crashed... identical symptoms. Ho hum.
I suspect that this might be the end of the road for me with Maui now...
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - leszek - 11th July 2017
Can you reproduce the same issue with the live system booted with the nomodeset boot option ?
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - kdemeoz - 11th July 2017
(11th July 2017, 16:15)kdemeoz Wrote:(11th July 2017, 14:38)leszek Wrote: You could also try booting the live system of Maui 17.06 to see if you can reproduce the issues there.
Maybe some config or cache files are getting in the way.
Right, i'm posting this back in Tower's "real" Maui again, having just finished testing your other suggestion; booting from LiveUSB [but 17.03 not 17.06]. I configured its Desktop Effects & Screen Edges [9 VDs, as usual]... then triggered the Desktop Grid view, & moved a window to another VD. KWin crashed... identical symptoms. Ho hum.
I suspect that this might be the end of the road for me with Maui now...
...AND now i have just finished testing Lappy when booted from the same Live USB. I configured it the same way as above, repeated the DG windows D&D test... & KWin crashed [just as i remembered Lappy used to do "for real" before i replaced its Maui with oS TW].
PS - Oh, i see you've posted another suggestion whilst i was doing the test [thanks]. I shall try that now.
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - kdemeoz - 11th July 2017
(11th July 2017, 16:24)leszek Wrote: Can you reproduce the same issue with the live system booted with the nomodeset boot option ?
Um, sorry, can you pls remind me how to do this? i assumed that i'll need to access the grub menu during boot to then force nomodeset...? I tried the Shift key [repeatedly] as soon as i selected the USB stick to boot from, in the F12 boot menu... but grub didn't come up & it just proceeded right into the Live Maui desktop.
Aha, found how: https://superuser.com/questions/611980/edit-boot-menu-when-booting-from-a-live-cd#613952
For now, i'm trying this latest Live test on Lappy [= oS TW] coz it's inconvenient to reboot Tower [= Maui] at the moment. IF your test gives a different outcome on Lappy, then obviously later i'll repeat on Tower.
--> Right, Lappy, with Live17.03USB booted in nomodeset, has awful screen resolution, & does not give me the Desktop Cube Animation option in System Settings anymore, BUT... KWin does NOT crash!
What does this mean now? Is it possible to combine this nomodeset setting but still have all my normal other settings? I mean, there's no way i could actually permanently use a pc this way for real; i need all my normal settings & resolution. However, this certainly is an interesting test result.
RE: Maui 17.06 has not fixed my longterm problems. - leszek - 11th July 2017
Hmm... so you have the crashing issue on the tower and the laptop?
That's even stranger as they use different hardware altogether.
If it's the Intel driver you could try removing the installed package to see if it works better with gallium.
The driver is called xserver-xorg-video-intel