Since about a week I am encountering frequent total freezes of my Ubuntu MATE 14.04. It has never happened before, and now it is killing me.
I installed 14.04 last November, I allowed all the updates that came in via the update tool (daily checks).
The first change I noticed some time ago: all of a sudden I was no longer prompted for my password when updates were installed. However, when I double checked for updates via Synaptic (which keeps prompting for the password) I sometimes found more updates available although I had just run the updater a minute before. That seemed odd, but I was not concerned.
I did not take notice of the appearance of 14.04.1 - I wonder if that was silently installed on my system by one of the updates.
Now there is 14.04.2 - again, I did not pay much attention. Only now, as I am in deep trouble, I took a look. I couldn’t find a clear statement how a user of original 14.04 comes by 14.04.1 and/or 14.04.2. Some digging yielded information about the tool lsb_release, so I learned that I actually seem to be running 14.04.2:
> guenter@guentert510:~$ lsb_release -a
> LSB Version: core-2.0-amd64:core-2.0-noarch:core-3.0-amd64:core-3.0-noarch:core-3.1-amd64:core-3.1-noarch:core-3.2-amd64:core-3.2-noarch:core-4.0-amd64:core-4.0-noarch:core-4.1-amd64:core-4.1-noarch:cxx-3.0-amd64:cxx-3.0-noarch:cxx-3.1-amd64:cxx-3.1-noarch:cxx-3.2-amd64:cxx-3.2-noarch:cxx-4.0-amd64:cxx-4.0-noarch:cxx-4.1-amd64:cxx-4.1-noarch:desktop-3.1-amd64:desktop-3.1-noarch:desktop-3.2-amd64:desktop-3.2-noarch:desktop-4.0-amd64:desktop-4.0-noarch:desktop-4.1-amd64:desktop-4.1-noarch:graphics-2.0-amd64:graphics-2.0-noarch:graphics-3.0-amd64:graphics-3.0-noarch:graphics-3.1-amd64:graphics-3.1-noarch:graphics-3.2-amd64:graphics-3.2-noarch:graphics-4.0-amd64:graphics-4.0-noarch:graphics-4.1-amd64:graphics-4.1-noarch:languages-3.2-amd64:languages-3.2-noarch:languages-4.0-amd64:languages-4.0-noarch:languages-4.1-amd64:languages-4.1-noarch:multimedia-3.2-amd64:multimedia-3.2-noarch:multimedia-4.0-amd64:multimedia-4.0-noarch:multimedia-4.1-amd64:multimedia-4.1-noarch:printing-3.2-amd64:printing-3.2-noarch:printing-4.0-amd64:printing-4.0-noarch:printing-4.1-amd64:printing-4.1-noarch:qt4-3.1-amd64:qt4-3.1-noarch:security-4.0-amd64:security-4.0-noarch:security-4.1-amd64:security-4.1-noarch
> Distributor ID: Ubuntu
> Description: Ubuntu 14.04.2 LTS
> Release: 14.04
> Codename: trusty
However, 14.04.2 sports kernel 3.16, according to the release information, but I got this:
guenter@guentert510:~$ uname -a
Linux guentert510 3.13.0-51-generic #84-Ubuntu SMP Wed Apr 15 12:08:34 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
I wonder now what kind of a hybrid mess I am really running, latest 14.04.2 with 14.04 kernel apparently, but what is the state of the rest of the system. What did I miss?
In my situation with frequent freezes, trying a new kernel could be the right move, but I don’t feel like I am in control anymore.
Before anyone recommends installing 15.04: I would like to stick with LTS versions - even though this one remains “unofficial”. I need a stable version that doesn’t require frequent installation work, with or without Canonical’s blessing. So far I am still hoping that the 14.04 platform will give me this, given it is coined LTS.