Experienced Linux Mint users?

[JeepWJ19]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I like it much better than Mate, but I have one occasional problem, and it's probably related to the Graphics card in the Vostro 220. Occasionally the system will freeze up, and I can barely see the program that was open, it's transparent, almost ghost like. In other words I can see through it to the desktop. When this happens the system locks up and I have to hit CTRL ALT and BACKSPACE, to force a re-boot. I have most of the "cool effects" turned off. I posted on the Mint Forum, to no avail. I thought it might have been a bad USB stick I had in the USB port causing the problem, but I removed the USB stick and still had the problem. Typically if I'm running a video that's when I'll have the problem. Only if I'm overworking the system. It only happens once in a while.

If I go into Driver Manager I get this message:

Unknown: Intel-microcode version 3.20151136.1 processor microcode firmware for Intel CPU.

Then there's a box checked saying Do not use the device.

No proprietary drivers are in use.


You could try to install alternative intel microcode

Weird you have this issue, seems like a rare bug.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: JeepWJ19
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I like it much better than Mate, but I have one occasional problem, and it's probably related to the Graphics card in the Vostro 220. Occasionally the system will freeze up, and I can barely see the program that was open, it's transparent, almost ghost like. In other words I can see through it to the desktop. When this happens the system locks up and I have to hit CTRL ALT and BACKSPACE, to force a re-boot. I have most of the "cool effects" turned off. I posted on the Mint Forum, to no avail. I thought it might have been a bad USB stick I had in the USB port causing the problem, but I removed the USB stick and still had the problem. Typically if I'm running a video that's when I'll have the problem. Only if I'm overworking the system. It only happens once in a while.

If I go into Driver Manager I get this message:

Unknown: Intel-microcode version 3.20151136.1 processor microcode firmware for Intel CPU.

Then there's a box checked saying Do not use the device.

No proprietary drivers are in use.


You could try to install alternative intel microcode

Weird you have this issue, seems like a rare bug.


I've been reading up on it, and it appears there are some issues with Cinnamon freezing up systems, right up until Mint 18. I haven't read a fix yet. In my case it doesn't happen that often, but when it does it is annoying. I like Cinnamon a lot more than Mint and would rather not switch back.

I installed Intel Microcode, I'll see what happens. Thanks!

 

[csandste]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: JeepWJ19
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
I like it much better than Mate, but I have one occasional problem, and it's probably related to the Graphics card in the Vostro 220. Occasionally the system will freeze up, and I can barely see the program that was open, it's transparent, almost ghost like. In other words I can see through it to the desktop. When this happens the system locks up and I have to hit CTRL ALT and BACKSPACE, to force a re-boot. I have most of the "cool effects" turned off. I posted on the Mint Forum, to no avail. I thought it might have been a bad USB stick I had in the USB port causing the problem, but I removed the USB stick and still had the problem. Typically if I'm running a video that's when I'll have the problem. Only if I'm overworking the system. It only happens once in a while.

If I go into Driver Manager I get this message:

Unknown: Intel-microcode version 3.20151136.1 processor microcode firmware for Intel CPU.

Then there's a box checked saying Do not use the device.

No proprietary drivers are in use.


You could try to install alternative intel microcode

Weird you have this issue, seems like a rare bug.


I've been reading up on it, and it appears there are some issues with Cinnamon freezing up systems, right up until Mint 18. I haven't read a fix yet. In my case it doesn't happen that often, but when it does it is annoying. I like Cinnamon a lot more than Mint and would rather not switch back.

I installed Intel Microcode, I'll see what happens. Thanks!


You mean Cinnamon more than Mate...right? I switched the other way because of speed on a marginal computer. Huge security fix in Ubuntu. Just installed updates on my GF's computer. Brings on that Mint fear again.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: csandste

You mean Cinnamon more than Mate...right? I switched the other way because of speed on a marginal computer. Huge security fix in Ubuntu. Just installed updates on my GF's computer. Brings on that Mint fear again.


Yes, I like Cinnamon more than Mate. I'm testing a new Kernel now, hopefully that works, the drivers didn't help. Worst case is I have to revert back to Mate, which I'd really rather not do. No help from the Linux forum at this point. I have plenty of patience and don't mind trying and learning as I go along.

 

[Killer223]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint

Yes, I like Cinnamon more than Mate. I'm testing a new Kernel now, hopefully that works, the drivers didn't help. Worst case is I have to revert back to Mate, which I'd really rather not do. No help from the Linux forum at this point. I have plenty of patience and don't mind trying and learning as I go along.


what driver are you having issues with? what isn't working?

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Killer223
Originally Posted By: demarpaint

Yes, I like Cinnamon more than Mate. I'm testing a new Kernel now, hopefully that works, the drivers didn't help. Worst case is I have to revert back to Mate, which I'd really rather not do. No help from the Linux forum at this point. I have plenty of patience and don't mind trying and learning as I go along.


what driver are you having issues with? what isn't working?


The graphics driver I believe. Occasionally the system will freeze up, here's what happens. I was creating a document in Libre Office, adding pictures to it. After pasting a few pictures in it freezes the system with the open program in a transparent state with the desktop wallpaper behind it. I can't take a screen shot because everything is locked up, and my only choice is to reboot. I can't see the controls of the program so I can't close it even if I wanted to. If I don't save the document as I'm working on I lose it. I tried installing a different driver for the graphics card to no avail, and shut off a lot of the Cinnamon bells and whistles with no luck either. I'm hoping I don't have to install Mate. I'm now using a different Kernel and it hasn't frozen up yet. Tomorrow I'll put it through the paces and see what happens. I'm hoping I fixed it but still have doubts.

The driver I was using was the generic graphics card driver, now I'm using the i965-va-driver, which didn't make any difference.

 

[Garak]

Keep us updated. The Mint forums never have as much information as the Ubuntu forums, so it's good to have some experiences out there.

 

[demarpaint]

^^ Will do.

 

[Killer223]

at the grub prompt, add this to the end of the line.

--nomodeset

see if that helps. and report back.
have you checked if there is "proprietary" driver available?

 

[Killer223]

can you post some logs? after rereading your post the nomodeset will not help you. i dont think anyhow.

let me know if you need help with the logs..

have you tried ctrl alt F2? does that get you to a command prompt?
and ctrl alt F7....

how about ctrl alt backspace when it freezes.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Killer223
at the grub prompt, add this to the end of the line.

--nomodeset

see if that helps. and report back.
have you checked if there is "proprietary" driver available?


My Linux knowledge is somewhat limited so I'd have to read up on how to do that, along with posting the logs. I looked at .xsession errors, but can't decipher what they mean at the moment.

The only Proprietary driver available was intel-microcode version 3.20151106.1 which I installed for the CPU and it didn't matter.

So far the Kernel change seems to have helped, but tomorrow when I start working with the machine I'll know for sure. I'm hoping the kernel change did the trick. I was able to get it to happen with some frequency by copying and posting pictures from different sites into an Libre Office document. I tried again after the kernel change and it hasn't happened, yet.

Thanks for the help, I'll update the thread at some point tomorrow. Too much New Year festivity, I'm burnt out. lol

 

[demarpaint]

Changing the kernel delayed the problem a bit, but it still happens.

 

[Killer223]

you can try going older kernel as well.. not always a newer one fixes things.

 

[demarpaint]

I just did that. I'll see what happens. I had a feeling with an older machine, older would be better, so I went to the kernel before the default kernel and I'm putting that through the paces now. I have to figure out how to get it to boot to that kernel all the time if it works. I'm currently booting and hitting the shift key and selecting 4.4.0-51 instead of 4.4.0-57.78, there was one in between which is what was installed with the OS.

 

[JeepWJ19]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint

I'm hoping the kernel change did the trick. I was able to get it to happen with some frequency by copying and posting pictures from different sites into an Libre Office document.


Just tried recreating your issue with copying and pasting images into a LO Writer document and didn't have any issue.

Humor me -> when testing to see if it works, copy your image from google and then use special paste (CTRL+SHIFT+V) and you should give an option to paste as a bitmap. See if that helps you in the least

Edit: Using Mint 18 + Cinnamon and Kernel 4.4.0-57-generic

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: JeepWJ19
Originally Posted By: demarpaint

I'm hoping the kernel change did the trick. I was able to get it to happen with some frequency by copying and posting pictures from different sites into an Libre Office document.


Just tried recreating your issue with copying and pasting images into a LO Writer document and didn't have any issue.

Humor me -> when testing to see if it works, copy your image from google and then use special paste (CTRL+SHIFT+V) and you should give an option to paste as a bitmap. See if that helps you in the least

Edit: Using Mint 18 + Cinnamon and Kernel 4.4.0-57-generic


I tried everything, including that to no avail. However today, at the moment, it is behaving for some odd reason. The good news is a good friend is sending me a graphics card, which we're convinced is my issue. I should have it in later this week, or early next week.

It is almost as if something is getting clogged, for lack of better term, or overworked and not clearing itself. If that makes sense. It doesn't always happen from copying and pasting, but that's the easiest way to bring it on.

 

[demarpaint]

I jinxed myself. LOL I loaded Lucky Backup to backup what I was working on this morning and had the problem. No copy/paste operations. I'm convinced the problem is with the on board graphics card I have.

 

[MONKEYMAN]

Every one of my older machines gets a graphics card. I have 3 MSI R5450 in service. I can walk to Micro Center and they put those on sale a lot. No problems with Linux. Does everything I need. Plug and play. I am running Peppermint or Mint Xfce if that matters.

Sometimes Linux does not have the drivers needed. I had an older Dell laptop but Linux did not have an ATI driver that worked. Frustrating.

I am interested in how this works out for you. I downloaded Cinnamon, but am waiting for you to work out all the problems before I try it.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: MONKEYMAN
Every one of my older machines gets a graphics card. I have 3 MSI R5450 in service. I can walk to Micro Center and they put those on sale a lot. No problems with Linux. Does everything I need. Plug and play. I am running Peppermint or Mint Xfce if that matters.

Sometimes Linux does not have the drivers needed. I had an older Dell laptop but Linux did not have an ATI driver that worked. Frustrating.

I am interested in how this works out for you. I downloaded Cinnamon, but am waiting for you to work out all the problems before I try it.

I'll update the thread as soon as I have have the card.

 

[The_Nuke]

Ignore the Intel Microcode thing, you can run it with that activated or without, won't make a difference for your freezing problem.

IMHO, the video driver is a good candidate, but you should be able to run different versions of it to test that theory. Swapping out the video card may work, but only if the different hardware requires a different video driver that isn't susceptible to the freezing problem's root cause.

I have an old PC clone with an Intel Mobo, Pentium CPU, DDR2 mem, etc. that sounds like it's very close to the type and architecture of hardware you are running, and I have three different versions of Mint installed on it (17.3 Cinnamon, 18 Cinnamon, and 18.1 MATE). So far, it has frozen up on me just like you describe (manipulating text in a LibreOffice Word document) on two of those and required a hard reset to resolve each time.

I haven't seen the freeze on the 18.1 yet, but it is running a different version of the nVidia drivers which I believe are causing my problems in the other two. Also, once I backed out the nVidia driver in the 17.3 and started using the generic version that is available for nVidia cards, I haven't seen anymore issues (but also stopped messing with LibreOffice for time being).

One other method by which I was able to test the various drivers' compatibility with its target setup was with the installed browsers (Vivaldi, Firefox, etc.) or any software that allows disabling/enabling of hardware acceleration (using the GPU). If the driver was giving me problems, it was always evident in how the programs that used the hardware acceleration behaved, and once I turned it off in those programs, they stopped acting up (blinking screens, etc.).

It may ultimately end up being a combination of things like the kernel version, desktop flavor, software bug, and video driver. Or maybe it's just 2 of the 4, or even 3 of the 4...and removing one of the elements of the equation will prevent the crashing even though the other elements remain.

Either way, the video drivers are going to be involved somehow I am willing to bet. Keep notes on what you're running now, what you run with new video card, and any other changes to them in future. If you get another freeze, write that down next to the driver notes. It may take a while, but you can probably narrow things down to what just doesn't play well together and avoid them altogether in an attempt to stop the crashing.

One more idea: stop using Libre Office in the interim (except for when trying to recreate or test new drivers/hardware). Use Google Docs or even Microsoft's free versions of Word/Excel/etc. to do your Office related tasks instead. They are all online (not installed locally per se), but they all have installable apps which can be installed in the browser you use (Chromium & Vivaldi at the very least) to make it more like you're using software installed locally on the PC.

Not exactly like the experience of having the suite on your PC, but close enough and good enough to get you by while you figure out what needs to be done to stop the crashes.