Gregg's Nearly Interminable Adventures in Linux Land

[PeterT]

I'm not sure if it's been suggested but possibly posting a system log that includes the boot might help figure out why it's so slow to boot.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by PeterT

I'm not sure if it's been suggested but possibly posting a system log that includes the boot might help figure out why it's so slow to boot.

As I understand it, boot speed wasn't the issue. It actually booted in the appropriate period of time.

There was simply a significant delay before the expected screen after booting appeared. That didn't mean it hadn't booted - only that Greg couldn't see anything.

That sounds to me like a video configuration issue, as though Ubuntu was trying to use a particular configuration, failing, and finally giving up and using a known good default setting.

Since the screen that actually appeared later is what Greg wanted, the known good default is just fine, and Ubuntu should use it in the first place.

Assuming the above is the case, the question is what the video configuration problem is and how to tell Ubuntu "use the default, not a custom config".
______
Dennis

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

As I understand it, boot speed wasn't the issue. It actually booted in the appropriate period of time.

Dennis, there was a delay. At least 15 minutes. And it didn't start up normally. It never showed the Dell screen. It never showed the Xubuntu screen. It just showed the DDR3 and Master/Slave stuff. Then that disappeared and 'Loading Operating System' came on, then the screen went black and a 'no input signal' came on. Only after 15 minutes or so and only after I rolled the mouse did the screen come on (fully opened).

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

There was simply a significant delay before the expected screen after booting appeared. That didn't mean it hadn't booted - only that Greg couldn't see anything.

That sounds to me like a video configuration issue, as though Ubuntu was trying to use a particular configuration, failing, and finally giving up and using a known good default setting.

Since the screen that actually appeared later is what Greg wanted, the known good default is just fine, and Ubuntu should use it in the first place.

The computer no longer boots from the power switch. It only boots from the GRUB loader and only the 15.10 kernel. Not the two 16.04 kernels that are there. It used to boot from the power switch to the latest 16.04 kernel but no longer does.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Assuming the above is the case, the question is what the video configuration problem is and how to tell Ubuntu "use the default, not a custom config".
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Dennis, there was a delay. At least 15 minutes. And it didn't start up normally. It never showed the Dell screen. It never showed the Xubuntu screen. It just showed the DDR3 and Master/Slave stuff. Then that disappeared and 'Loading Operating System' came on, then the screen went black and a 'no input signal' came on. Only after 15 minutes or so and only after I rolled the mouse did the screen come on (fully opened).

Like I said, you couldn't see anything.

The fact that the fully opened screen did appear later, after you gave input in the form of mouse movement, indicates that things were happening behind the curtain. My suspicion is the kernel loaded and the system got at least part way through the boot process before trouble occurred. It did eventually fully boot.

When I reboot here, the first thing I see is the Dell screen, but that's displayed by the system BIOS. An OS has not yet been loaded. The next thing I see is the grub boot menu, offering me a choice of Ubuntu, Win10, or Win7, and defaulting to Ubuntu if I don't specify otherwise at that point.

I have Enlightenment, a couple of flavors of Gnome, LXDE, Unity, and XFCE installed as GUIs, and can select which to use from the Login screen. The default is the last one used.

The computer no longer boots from the power switch. It only boots from the GRUB loader and only the 15.10 kernel. Not the two 16.04 kernels that are there. It used to boot from the power switch to the latest 16.04 kernel but no longer does.

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

If I power cycle, I see what I mentioned above. It sounds like what you expect is to go automatically into Ubuntu with no grub screen. Personally, I wouldn't want that, even if I didn't dual boot. Grub lets you do things like select an older kernel to boot from in the event of unexpected problems.
______
Dennis

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Like I said, you couldn't see anything.

The fact that the fully opened screen did appear later, after you gave input in the form of mouse movement, indicates that things were happening behind the curtain. My suspicion is the kernel loaded and the system got at least part way through the boot process before trouble occurred. It did eventually fully boot.

Thanks Dennis. I should've mentioned this as a potential clue. When I did the upgrade from 15.10 to 16.04LTS I got through the entire update fine. The last thing to do was to reboot. So I clicked on reboot. Well, when I did nothing happened. It wasn't like a normal reboot at all. The screen just went blank. And stayed blank. For maybe 2 or 3 minutes. After that time had elapsed I thought the computer had powered off (it had not) and so I pressed the power button,thinking I was turning it on.

I wonder if that may have had something to do with the subsequent problems.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

When I reboot here, the first thing I see is the Dell screen, but that's displayed by the system BIOS. An OS has not yet been loaded. The next thing I see is the grub boot menu, offering me a choice of Ubuntu, Win10, or Win7, and defaulting to Ubuntu if I don't specify otherwise at that point.

I have Enlightenment, a couple of flavors of Gnome, LXDE, Unity, and XFCE installed as GUIs, and can select which to use from the Login screen. The default is the last one used.

This is my first experience with the grub boot menu. I've never had more than one OS, never dual booted, so usually I just turn on the power switch and the computer boots up.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

^I'm not quite sure what you mean.

When I simply push the power button the computer does not boot. Period.

This is how I go about starting the computer.

1) I turn on the monitor
2) I push the power button.
3) As the DDR3 and Slave/Master stuff starts coming on I hold down the Shift key.
4) Eventually the grub boot menu appears
5) I choose the 'advanced options'
6) There I see my three kernels (including 'upstart' and 'recovery' versions)
7) I arrow down to the 15.10 version
8) I hit the Enter key
9) The computer comes on (and in less than 2 minutes)

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

If I power cycle, I see what I mentioned above. It sounds like what you expect is to go automatically into Ubuntu with no grub screen. Personally, I wouldn't want that, even if I didn't dual boot. Grub lets you do things like select an older kernel to boot from in the event of unexpected problems.
______
Dennis

Normally I don't see a grub screen. Or at least I've never noticed it. And now, thank goodness for the grub screen because it let's me choose the 15.10 kernel as the two 16.04 kernels don't boot.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Thanks Dennis. I should've mentioned this as a potential clue. When I did the upgrade from 15.10 to 16.04LTS I got through the entire update fine. The last thing to do was to reboot. So I clicked on reboot. Well, when I did nothing happened. It wasn't like a normal reboot at all. The screen just went blank. And stayed blank. For maybe 2 or 3 minutes. After that time had elapsed I thought the computer had powered off (it had not) and so I pressed the power button,thinking I was turning it on.

I wonder if that may have had something to do with the subsequent problems.

Possible.

I encountered something like that on an older machine. I did a version upgrade from a version of Ubuntu to a later one. The upgrade process went normally. Things went to Hell in a bucket when I rebooted.

The problem was that the new kernel required PAE support, and the ancient notebook (a Fujitsu p2110) I was installing to didn't have it. So the new kernel didn't install.

What I got when I booted was an unusable system, and the symptoms were video related. If I booted to a command line, all was well. If I tried to use a GUI, I was hosed.

What I wound up doing was wiping the Ubuntu slice and reinstalling from scratch, carefully stopping before that version upgrade. There wasn't anything on the Ubuntu slice I needed to preserve, so it was a viable (if time consuming) alternative.

(I sent a nastygram to Ubuntu recommending that if the upgrade required stuff like PAE support, it should test for that and abort if not present as the first thing it did. I think the Ubuntu devs never imagined someone might try the upgrade on older kit that didn't support it.)

The Fujitsu was a pass along from a friend who upgraded, but loved the old machine, and didn't want to just throw it out. I used it as a test bed to see what performance I could wring from ancient hardware without throwing money at it. The big limitation was 256MB RAM, which the Transmeta Crusoe CPU grabbed 16MB off the top of for "code morphing". It came to me with WinXP SP2 installed and took 8 minutes to simply boot. Actually doing anything once it had took longer. No surprise. XP wants 512MB RAM minimum. I reformatted, repartitioned, and installed Win2K SP4, Ubuntu Linux, Puppy Linux, and FreeDOS in a multi-boot config.

I originally installed Xubuntu, which installed without a hitch but was still snail slow. Posters on the Ubuntu forums said that too much Gnome had crept into XFCE, and that Ubuntu had a steadily advancing idea of what "low end" was. They recommended what I did: wipe and install from the 10MB Minimal CD, to get a working command line installation, then use apt-get to pick and choose what I wanted. Installing LXDE, a specifically light-weight GUI package, brought the Xorg stuff needed to use a GUI as a dependency. The result, installed on an ext4 file system, was still no speed demon but was usable. Puppy was designed for low end kit, and also worked fairly well. Win2K Pro worked a little better than Linux, after I took everything I could out of the Startup configuration. (The big win was turning off the Windows Update service, since Win2K would no longer get any. It saved me a SVCHOST.EXE process and 10MB RAM.) FreeDOS flew.

The other issue with that box was a slow IDE4 HD, and that was a BIOS limitation that swapping in a faster drive wouldn't fix. Large programs took forever to load. I didn't even try to run current Firefox, It would take 45 seconds to load and be perceptibly sluggish once up

It was fun to play with and tweak, but I had other machines where the real work got done. I haven't even turned it on in months.

This is my first experience with the grub boot menu. I've never had more than one OS, never dual booted, so usually I just turn on the power switch and the computer boots up.

With only one OS, yeah, I suppose it would behave like that.

When I simply push the power button the computer does not boot. Period.

This is how I go about starting the computer.

1) I turn on the monitor
2) I push the power button.
3) As the DDR3 and Slave/Master stuff starts coming on I hold down the Shift key.

Tell me more? I don't see those here, and don't recall ever seeing them.

4) Eventually the grub boot menu appears
5) I choose the 'advanced options'
6) There I see my three kernels (including 'upstart' and 'recovery' versions)
7) I arrow down to the 15.10 version
8) I hit the Enter key
9) The computer comes on (and in less than 2 minutes)

What do you have on the machine you need to preserve? I strongly suspect your best option is also "Wipe and redo from scratch". I think a 16.04 LTS installed from scratch might work but that's just a guess. If not, go for th previous 15.04 LTS release, and stay put.

Normally I don't see a grub screen. Or at least I've never noticed it. And now, thank goodness for the grub screen because it let's me choose the 15.10 kernel as the two 16.04 kernels don't boot.

What, if anything, happens if you try?
______
Dennis

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Possible.

I encountered something like that on an older machine.

Hey Dennis. Thanks. Thing is this computer is only about 3 or 4 years old. It's 64 bit. It's pretty nice.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I did a version upgrade from a version of Ubuntu to a later one. The upgrade process went normally. Things went to Hell in a bucket when I rebooted.

The problem was that the new kernel required PAE support, and the ancient notebook (a Fujitsu p2110) I was installing to didn't have it. So the new kernel didn't install.

What I got when I booted was an unusable system, and the symptoms were video related. If I booted to a command line, all was well. If I tried to use a GUI, I was hosed.

What I wound up doing was wiping the Ubuntu slice and reinstalling from scratch, carefully stopping before that version upgrade. There wasn't anything on the Ubuntu slice I needed to preserve, so it was a viable (if time consuming) alternative.

(I sent a nastygram to Ubuntu recommending that if the upgrade required stuff like PAE support, it should test for that and abort if not present as the first thing it did.)

I hear you. The installation instructions for many things leave stuff out. Like you're supposed to be a psychic as to what's needed. So frustrating. I usually need two or three information sources to install anything.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The Fujitsu was a pass along from a friend who upgraded, but loved the old machine, and didn't want to just throw it out. I used it as a test bed to see what performance I could wring from ancient hardware without throwing money at it. The big limitation was 256MB RAM, which the Transmeta Crusoe CPU grabbed 16MB off the top of for "code morphing". It came to me with WinXP SP2 installed and took 8 minutes to simply boot. Actually doing anything once it had took longer. No surprise. XP wants 512MB RAM minimum. I reformatted, repartitioned, and installed Win2K SP4, Ubuntu Linux, Puppy Linux, and FreeDOS in a multi-boot config.

I originally installed Xubuntu, which installed without a hitch but was still snail slow. Posters on the Ubuntu forums said that too much Gnome had crept into XFCE, and that Ubuntu had a steadily advancing idea of what "low end" was. They recommended what I did: wipe and install from the 10MB Minimal CD, to get a working command line installation, then use apt-get to pick and choose what I wanted. Installing LXDE, a specifically light-weight GUI package, brought the Xorg stuff needed to use a GUI as a dependency. The result, installed on an ext4 file system, was still no speed demon but was usable. Puppy was designed for low end kit, and also worked fairly well. Win2K Pro worked a little better than Linux, after I took everything I could out of the Startup configuration. (The big win was turning off the Windows Update service, since Win2K would no longer get any. It saved me a SVCHOST.EXE process and 10MB RAM.) FreeDOS flew.

The other issue with that box was a slow IDE4 HD, and that was a BIOS limitation that swapping in a faster drive wouldn't fix. Large programs took forever to load. I didn't even try to run current Firefox, It would take 45 seconds to load and be perceptibly sluggish once up

It was fun to play with and tweak, but I had other machines where the real work got done. I haven't even turned it on in months.

I've got two Dell Latitude 505 laptops. I just wanted to run Libreoffice on them and use them as word processors. People told me there was no way. Well, at first I installed Xubuntu on one of them and although the LO wasn't bad, everything else was molasses.

Got rid of Xubuntu and installed MX-14 and the LO works great. The other laptop I put Porteus on and that works even better. (So much for the naysayers.)

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Tell me more? I don't see those here, and don't recall ever seeing them.

I can't really tell you anything else. Yeah, the information (the DDR3 etc) just shows up as if it's on the terminal. It isn't the actual terminal (I don't think anyway) but it's data on a black screen.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What, if anything, happens if you try?

Nothing happens. The computer gyrates (the red light comes on intermittently as if it's loading) for about 2-3 minutes and then the "No Input Signal" window comes on and then the monitor shuts off.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What do you have on the machine you need to preserve? I strongly suspect your best option is also "Wipe and redo from scratch". I think a 16.04 LTS installed from scratch might work but that's just a guess. If not, go for th previous 15.04 LTS release, and stay put.
Dennis

I don't need to preserve much. I would be more concerned about the stuff that syncs, like Mega (cloud storage), Dropbox, the favorites in the Firefox browser and a few other things.

And the other kernel is 15.10, not 15.04 LTS.

But there's a new development. I was uncomfortable about that GRUB_DEFAULT=4, and today there was a software update that I installed. Well, as it was installing I watched the "details" in the terminal. There were a ton of things of course but also several Warnings! that anything other than "0" in the GRUB DEFAULT would not be recognized. (or something along those lines anyway).

So I went in and changed the grub default back to zero. Then (the software update called for it) I did a reboot.

The reboot started out as the same old same old. Totally not typical. No Dell screen. No Xubuntu screen. And I can't remember if there was the DDR3 and Master/Slave stuff that is usually there (I don't think it was there). So it was just the blank screen and then the "No input signal" window and then the monitor turned off.

Well, in the past when the computer booted to the 16.04LTS kernel (from the power switch) I always waited about 17 minutes before I scrolled the mouse and then the screen would be up and populated with icons (all normal). So today on this latest reboot I waited the 17 minutes and low and behold the screen was up. All normal.

I ran the

uname -r

command and it was indeed running the latest 16.04LTS kernel.

I was tempted to see if I could get into the latest 16.04LTS kernel via the Grub loader (to bring it up faster) but then I thought I didn't want to mess with things. I can live with the 17 minute start time. (Otherwise, I'd have the 15.10 kernel running and then are the software updates for the 16.04LTS backward compatible and apply to the 15.10?)

This way, hopefully, when the 16.10 (short term) upgrade comes along it will take properly.

[Glorfindel]

What button do you normally push to power on, specifically? Power strip, computer power button? If the button on pc isn't working you have deeper problems, especially if it is software related.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

What button do you normally push to power on, specifically? Power strip, computer power button? If the button on pc isn't working you have deeper problems, especially if it is software related.

Thanks Glorfindel. I normally push the power button on the computer.

Actually I think I'm in decent shape now. The latest kernel boots now and hopefully the next upgrade will take care of the delayed boot time.

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

Hey Dennis. Thanks. Thing is this computer is only about 3 or 4 years old. It's 64 bit. It's pretty nice.

That's old in current terms, but not positively ancient, as my Fujitsu is.

You can still get 32 bit versions of Windows (including Win10) and Linux, but I don't believe you can get a new PC that's 32 bit. The PC world has all moved to 64 bit hardware.

From the average user's point of view, 32 bit vs 64 bit is mostly irrelevant. The difference between them is the address space supported. 32bit tops out at 4GB. 64bit is an order of magnitude larger. 64bit machines will permit you to install more RAM and have more programs loaded simultaneously. But you likely don't care if the programs are 64bit - an application that needs more than 4GB address space is unusual. I run 64bit programs if there is a 64 bit version, but don't care if there isn't.

I hear you. The installation instructions for many things leave stuff out. Like you're supposed to be a psychic as to what's needed. So frustrating. I usually need two or three information sources to install anything.

I normally don't, but I've been pounding my head against these sorts of walls for decades. I start with background knowledge about what's going on that you may not have.

I've got two Dell Latitude 505 laptops. I just wanted to run Libreoffice on them and use them as word processors. People told me there was no way. Well, at first I installed Xubuntu on one of them and although the LO wasn't bad, everything else was molasses.

See my earlier comments about installing Xubuntu on my Lifebook.

I just looked at the specs. They look reasonable for that usage, depending on installed RAM - I'd want to max them the the full 2GB possible.

Got rid of Xubuntu and installed MX-14 and the LO works great. The other laptop I put Porteus on and that works even better. (So much for the naysayers.)

What are the specs on the machines? The main variable I'd look at would be RAM, where more is better.

(On my old 32 bit dual-core desktop, I dual-booted WinXP and Ubuntu. My preference is to install different OSes to different drives. The motherboard I was using [an emergency replacement for a failed one] had a quirk: it supported four IDE devices, period. I had a PCI IDE expansion card that added more IDE connectors, and had more than four IDE devices in the system. Things would work fine for a bit, but at some point, one of the IDE devices was likely to simply disappear.

I had that happen to the drive Ubuntu was installed on while I was in Ubuntu. Ubuntu tries to do everything in RAM, so I didn't even notice it had occurred until I was trying to install updates and the install was failing because the file system the updates were to be written to no longer existed.

I can only imagine what might have happened had I been in Windows and the Windows drive dropped out... )

I can't really tell yo anything else. Yeah, the information (the DDR3 etc) just shows up as if it's on the terminal. It isn't the actual terminal (I don't think anyway) but it's data on a black screen.

No, it's not the terminal emulator. It's the device console. Sounds like stuff put up by the BIOS in the boot process.

Nothing happens. The computer gyrates (the red light comes on intermittently as if it's loading) for about 2-3 minutes and then the "No Input Signal" window comes on and then the monitor shuts off.

You get that because the system isn't generating anything to display on the screen. It doesn't necessarily mean nothing is actually happening - only that if something is happening it isn't creating visible progress indicators.

I don't need to preserve much. I would be more concerned about the stuff that syncs, like Mega (cloud storage), Dropbox, the favorites in the Firefox browser and a few other things.

Those are easy enough to preserve.

And the other kernel is 15.10, not 15.04 LTS.

I know. But if you did wipe and redo from scratch, and 16.04 didn't work, I'd use 15.04 as it's also an LTS release. As a rule, I recommend LTS releases for most cases. You still get security fixes and installed program updates, but you don't get a new version of Ubuntu until the next LTS version is ready. Unless you have special needs or like to stay bleeding edge, I see no reason to got for "point" releases of Ubuntu itself.

But there's a new development. I was uncomfortable about that GRUB_DEFAULT=4, and today there was a software update that I installed. Well, as it was installing I watched the "details" in the terminal. There were a ton of things of course but also several Warnings! that anything other than "0" in the GRUB DEFAULT would not be recognized. (or something along those lines anyway).

So I went in and changed the grub default back to zero. Then (the software update called for it) I did a reboot.

The reboot started out as the same old same old. Totally not typical. No Dell screen. No Xubuntu screen. And I can't remember if there was the DDR3 and Master/Slave stuff that is usually there (I don't think it was there). So it was just the blank screen and then the "No input signal" window and then the monitor turned off.

Well, in the past when the computer booted to the 16.04LTS kernel (from the power switch) I always waited about 17 minutes before I scrolled the mouse and then the screen would be up and populated with icons (all normal). So today on this latest reboot I waited the 17 minutes and low and behold the screen was up. All normal.

I ran the

uname -r

command and it was indeed running the latest 16.04LTS kernel.

I was tempted to see if I could get into the latest 16.04LTS kernel via the Grub loader (to bring it up faster) but then I thought I didn't want to mess with things. I can live with the 17 minute start time. (Otherwise, I'd have the 15.10 kernel running and then are the software updates for the 16.04LTS backward compatible and apply to the 15.10?)

This way, hopefully, when the 16.10 (short term) upgrade comes along it will take properly.

The question is what happens if you shutdown/reboot. Do you still see the 17minute delay before you finally get a usable screen?

The fact that you performed your operation and did successfully boot up into a 16.04 release indicates it's not a kernel problem. Something else is causing the delay, and we're trying to isolate what.
______
Dennis

[Glorfindel]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I had that happen to the drive Ubuntu was installed on while I was in Ubuntu. Ubuntu tries to do everything in RAM, so I didn't even notice it had occurred until I was trying to install updates and the install was failing because the file system the updates were to be written to no longer existed.

I can only imagine what might have happened had I been in Windows and the Windows drive dropped out... )

Had a laptop that was open and running that I dropped something on, causing the hdd to stop. Instant bsod.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

From the average user's point of view, 32 bit vs 64 bit is mostly irrelevant. The difference between them is the address space supported. 32bit tops out at 4GB. 64bit is an order of magnitude larger. 64bit machines will permit you to install more RAM and have more programs loaded simultaneously. But you likely don't care if the programs are 64bit - an application that needs more than 4GB address space is unusual. I run 64bit programs if there is a 64 bit version, but don't care if there isn't.

So you can run 64 bit programs on 32 it computers unless the program is bigger than 4GB?

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

What are the specs on the machines?

All three of the laptops I have are Dell Latitude D505. But the issue with the delayed booting is with my desktop.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

Nothing happens. The computer gyrates (the red light comes on intermittently as if it's loading) for about 2-3 minutes and then the "No Input Signal" window comes on and then the monitor shuts off.

You get that because the system isn't generating anything to display on the screen. It doesn't necessarily mean nothing is actually happening - only that if something is happening it isn't creating visible progress indicators.

But I've rolled the mouse when the red light is flashing and the screen still shows nothing (except the "No input signal" window).

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I don't need to preserve much. I would be more concerned about the stuff that syncs, like Mega (cloud storage), Dropbox, the favorites in the Firefox browser and a few other things.


Those are easy enough to preserve.

That's good to know. (If I have to do it I'll probably back here asking for help! LOL)

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

I know. But if you did wipe and redo from scratch, and 16.04 didn't work, I'd use 15.04 as it's also an LTS release. As a rule, I recommend LTS releases for most cases. You still get security fixes and installed program updates, but you don't get a new version of Ubuntu until the next LTS version is ready. Unless you have special needs or like to stay bleeding edge, I see no reason to got for "point" releases of Ubuntu itself.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. This is what I've got on the computer:

gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ aptitude search linux-image |grep '^i'
i A linux-image-4.2.0-35-generic    - Linux kernel image for version 4.2.0 on 64
i A linux-image-4.4.0-21-generic    - Linux kernel image for version 4.4.0 on 64
i A linux-image-4.4.0-22-generic    - Linux kernel image for version 4.4.0 on 64
i A linux-image-extra-4.2.0-35-gene - Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.2
i A linux-image-extra-4.4.0-21-gene - Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.4
i A linux-image-extra-4.4.0-22-gene - Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.4
i A linux-image-generic             - Generic Linux kernel image                
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ uname -r
4.4.0-22-generic
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$

And so the 4.4.0-22-generic is what is running and it's 16.04LTS. So is 4.4.0-21-generic. But 4.2.0-35-generic is 15.10 short term. (I think. As far as I know I've never had an LTS on it till 16.04LTS.)

And I've always enjoyed getting the 6 month upgrades. You get the new Libreoffice and don't most of the other apps get upgraded, as well?

I'm obviously not a beta guy, but if I get the LTS I feel like I'm missing out.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The question is what happens if you shutdown/reboot. Do you still see the 17minute delay before you finally get a usable screen?

Here's the latest. Today I did the power switch turn on. After about 6 minutes of nothing the red activity light came on for about 20 seconds and after it went out I scrolled the mouse to see if perchance the computer had come on. No luck. Then, as I had experienced before, when I got to 18 minutes (to be safe) I scrolled the mouse again and nothing.

So, I powered the computer off and waited till the 18 minute mark without touching the mouse and it was on.

Originally Posted by DMcCunney

The fact that you performed your operation and did successfully boot up into a 16.04 release indicates it's not a kernel problem. Something else is causing the delay, and we're trying to isolate what.
______
Dennis

Thanks.

[Gregg Bell]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

Had a laptop that was open and running that I dropped something on, causing the hdd to stop. Instant bsod.

What did you drop on it? LOL

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Glorfindel

Had a laptop that was open and running that I dropped something on, causing the hdd to stop. Instant bsod.

BSODs are always hardware related. And yeah, that will do it.
______
Dennis

[DMcCunney]

Originally Posted by Gregg Bell

So you can run 64 bit programs on 32 it computers unless the program is bigger than 4GB?

No. It's the other way around. 32 bit is a subset of 64 bit. You can run 32 bit programs on a 64 bit machine (and most application program code is still 32 bit.) You cannot run code built as 64 bit on a 32 bit machine.

32 bit and 64 bit refer to the amount of memory the machine can use. That value is called the machine's address space. Each byte of memory must have a unique address the system can access to load, store, change, and remove data. The number of possible unique addresses is governed by the size of the register that holds the address. 32 bit machines have addresses that are up to 2^32 in size, which means a maximum of 4GB worth of addresses. 64 bit machines us a 64 bit address register, but I'll let you do the math as to how big a number that can be. (It's a very large number indeed.)

All three of the laptops I have are Dell Latitude D505. But the issue with the delayed booting is with my desktop.

Still curious about the specs on the 505s.

But I've rolled the mouse when the red light is flashing and the screen still shows nothing (except the "No input signal" window).

Yes. So? Nothing happening in the computer at that point is generating any output to the screen.

Moving the mouse/pressing a key can wake up a monitor where the screen has been blanked because of no activity, but the system must be at a point where there is something to display when you do it. In your case, there isn't.

That's good to know. (If I have to do it I'll probably back here asking for help! LOL)

The first and strongest recommendation I will make if you do that is Look Stuff Up and make sure you understand what you are doing before you pull the trigger.

This particular thread is largely a consequence of not knowing stuff.

I'm not sure what you mean by this. This is what I've got on the computer:

gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ aptitude search linux-image |grep '^i'
i A linux-image-4.2.0-35-generic    - Linux kernel image for version 4.2.0 on 64
i A linux-image-4.4.0-21-generic    - Linux kernel image for version 4.4.0 on 64
i A linux-image-4.4.0-22-generic    - Linux kernel image for version 4.4.0 on 64
i A linux-image-extra-4.2.0-35-gene - Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.2
i A linux-image-extra-4.4.0-21-gene - Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.4
i A linux-image-extra-4.4.0-22-gene - Linux kernel extra modules for version 4.4
i A linux-image-generic             - Generic Linux kernel image                
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$ uname -r
4.4.0-22-generic
gregg@LG:~/Desktop$

And so the 4.4.0-22-generic is what is running and it's 16.04LTS. So is 4.4.0-21-generic. But 4.2.0-35-generic is 15.10 short term. (I think. As far as I know I've never had an LTS on it till 16.04LTS.)

That's about right. 4.4.0 is a later version than 4.2.0.

You might want to download and install Ubuntu Tweak. It's a system cleaner utility, and one of the things it makes easy is removing older Linux kernels. New kernels do not replace existing ones. They are installed in addition to any existing kernels, and a successful upgrade will have the new kernel the one that will be loaded by default. You can select earlier ones via Grub. Run Ubuntu long enough and get enough new kernels, and you can have a significant amount of stuff occupying space to no purpose. I generally clean out all but the current and immediately previous kernel, and delete the older kernels and associated kernel header packages. One such exercise recovered close to a GB of disk space, as I hadn't cleaned house in a while.

And I've always enjoyed getting the 6 month upgrades. You get the new Libreoffice and don't most of the other apps get upgraded, as well?

There is no direct connection between OS version upgrades and application version upgrades. They happen independently of each other. Depending on your setting in Ubuntu, you get notified when there are newer versions of applications you have installed when they appear. Newer versions of the apps will generally run just fine on older versions of the OS, and if there are OS version dependencies, you'll be informed of them.

I'm obviously not a beta guy, but if I get the LTS I feel like I'm missing out.

If you don't go with the LTS, you are a beta guy. LTS stands for Long Term Support, and LTS releases are considered to be stable and debugged. Intermediate releases are not, and are beta code. You can have problems (and I have) by using them. They are there for testing purposes, and sometimes tests fail.

Here's the latest. Today I did the power switch turn on. After about 6 minutes of nothing the red activity light came on for about 20 seconds and after it went out I scrolled the mouse to see if perchance the computer had come on. No luck. Then, as I had experienced before, when I got to 18 minutes (to be safe) I scrolled the mouse again and nothing.

So, I powered the computer off and waited till the 18 minute mark without touching the mouse and it was on.

We still have the question of what all is going on before it reaches that point, but I gather once it has the system is usable and behaves as expected.

Power on and go have a leisurely coffee break, then come back and use it.

(Our friend Naomi was grousing that her Internet at home wasn't working. In fact, it was working fine. I set up her wireless router for her and her laptop automatically authenticates. The problem was, she was impatient. She was trying to use the machine and go online before it had fully booted and reached the stage of authenticating with the router. My SO said "You were trying to use it before it had its coffee. You know what you're like before you have coffee. Turn on the laptop, go have a cup of coffee yourself, and by the time you come back the Internet should be available." That she understood, and when she followed the advice, Lo! Things Just Worked. )
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Dennis