Ubuntu MATE 20.04 Pre-release Testing

Development Discussion
#21

I found the real reason for the crashes of Ubuntu MATE Welcome on both QEMU/KVM (Virt-Manager) and VirtualBox.

The problematic package is the gstreamer1.0-vaapi (see https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/gstreamer1.0-vaapi).
It is a dependency of ubuntu-restricted-addons (see https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/ubuntu-restricted-addons).

So ubuntu-mate-welcome and for example Cheese may be fixed by removing this package with

sudo apt-get purge gstreamer1.0-vaapi
sudo apt-get autoremove --purge # to remove libgstreamer-plugins-bad1.0-0 (is not a problem)

So this is not our bug.

3 Likes
#22

@Norbert_X and everyone, I can confirm that using the two commands you provided to remove gstreamer1.0-vaapi eliminated the problem on the existing 20.04 installation in a virt-manager VM. Yelp and Cheese no longer crash the system. I also reinstalled ubuntu-mate-welcome and now it behaves as it should.

2 Likes
#23

@OldNavy I agree with @franksmcb that you could have burned the ISO to a USB drive. If you would like some help, feel free to download one of the PDF books from this site. https://goinglinux.com/articles/UbuntuMATEBook_en.htm The "Upgrading from Windows or macOS" book includes installation instructions and both include lots of information for getting started with Ubuntu MATE. (The downloadable PDFs are earlier versions of the ones for sale on Amazon. Full disclosure: I am the author.)

#24

I think it was more of an issue with the USB tool
I got from Pendrivelinux.com.It would not recognize the ubuntu file.
I ran it through Fedora Media Writer 4.1.4 it was more than willing
to accept ubuntu iso, I used it to install the 1-17 daily.
I'm currently chasing another rabbit hole, AVHI is throwing a network error
something about an unacceptable domain apparently it thinks my
router's ip has to have " .router.local" appended to it . So I'll be going
in circles for the next 12 hrs.

#25

I'm dual-booting with Manjaro MATE and Ubuntu MATE 20.04, and, interestingly, I haven't gotten so much as a program error from apport.

In other words, it's running perfectly.

1 Like
#26

Hello @franksmcb, how are you doing? I created a bootable flash drive and used it to boot my computer with UM 20.04 so the test was as accurate as possible because it was on an actual machine. The only point I want to raise here is that when I reached Martin wimpress out back at the 19.10 release and btw this is on the release notes as well, he told me that users would be able to ALT+TAB and then click on the application one would like to restore.

Just like the "vanilla" Ubuntu where not only you can do that but also if you press the "Super" key, all open applications are shown and again, one can click on one of them and restore it. And this feature wasn't present on the October release and it is nowhere to be found on 20.04 as well.

When one opens some applications, minimizes them and then presses ALT+TAB, one is not able to click on any of the open applications and as a final result, restore it. I just want to know why is it.

It would be nice if this feature will be present on this coming release because it's a really handy one. If you want me to send you a video of me using it, I will do.

Other than that, tearing is really gone, except some small stuttering here and there but that's fine by me and stability overall is great too. Thank you :+1:

#27

Hi, I'm new to Ubuntu Mate, I'm running 19.10. So far I find it amazing and super intuitive. When I go to 20.04, do I have to reinstall or can I update to it?

#28

The ALT + TAB function does work via keyboard but not mouse as you have found. I have noted that and hope we can get that addressed. Thanks for pointing that out.

1 Like
#29

Yes, you will be able to upgrade to 20.04 from 19.10.

#30

Upgrades on a running system CAN go badly awry. I'd just install the latest LTS and be done with it.

2 Likes
#31

Yes. For example: After upgrading from 19.04 to 19.10 I was unable to mount or unmount except as root (sudo) any external USB drive, regardless of format (EXT4, NTFS, etc.) I had to run gnome-disks as root, then change the mount options to include "user" in the options list. I had to do that for every new device. I don't think the average user would have figured that out. It was so annoying that I reinstalled 19.10 from scratch and everything worked fine after that.

I also think that this is not an Ubuntu MATE issue, rather an upstream Ubuntu issue, since my co-host on the podcast had a similar issue after an upgrade on another Ubuntu derivative.

1 Like
#32

I upgraded one of my machines that 19.10 didn't like and so far much better, at least liveable with now

#33

Just a note, there seems to be a problem with saving audio profiles in 20.04, specifically the output hardware when using an HDMI monitor. If I leave my laptop plugged into the monitor, it continues to use Digital Stereo (HDMI) Output upon reboot, however, when I disconnect the laptop, it reverts to the default setting the next time I plug it into the same monitor and I have to go in and manually change it.

Not sure if this is a bug or how the settings are supposed to work, I thought I would bring it up just in case.

1 Like
#34

I installed 20.04 in Virtualbox (Host: Arch Xfce) and everything works great. Did full-upgrade and all is well. Ubuntu MATE is my go-to distro for anyone wanting to try Linux, starting them out on a great, super solid operating system. Keep up the fine work, guys.

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#35

I've managed to mess up with the updates on my PC running Ubuntu MATE 19.10... nothing seemed to be able to fix the situation... The PC worked but, for example, Wine was uninstalled, trying to re-install it via Synaptic signalised that a lot of other things will be uninstalled (caja, caja plugins, Brave browser, etc.)

Well, I thought it might be a good idea to try to update to Ubuntu MATE 20.04 before re-installing Ubuntu MATE 19.10 from scratch...

And... MAGIC !!!

  • WineHQ 5.0 installation works (I use it for Notepad++ and HeidiSQL)
  • re-enabled and re-configured the repositories in "Software & Updates" one by one
  • apt update / installation issues went away (after several updates / upgrades and re-boots)
  • Ubuntu MATE 20.04 runs with Linux Kernel 5.5.2 (after adding some missing i915 firmware files)
  • VirtualBox 6.1.2 from virtualbox.org works as expected
  • etc.

Notes:

  • all the programs I use work as expected (GIMP, Krita, LibreOffice from PPA, Softmaker Office, Remmina form PPA, Clemetine, Vivaldi, Firefox, Thunderbird, Brave, VLC Media Player, MediathekView, Notepadqq, AnyDesk, Eclipse, ukuu, Kindle, KeepassXC, balenaEtcher, etc.).

The issues I've found during the last 6 hours after upgrading to UM 20.04:

  • Software Boutique is empty - each category
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  • Software & Updates - issue reported here gi.repository.GLib.GError: pk-client-error-quark: ... and here software properties gtk crashed... => I made the changes in the "apt" list files and in the "Software & Updates" window, but used the Terminal for "sudo apt update", etc. to avoid the issue
  • I had to remove and re-install "Notepadqq" to be able to see the content of the files (the tabs were shown, but not the content)
  • Peter Levi's "Variety" - the "Text font" for "wise quotes" was set to "No font" -> fixed by selecting a font from the list

I am very impressed by the upgrade from UM 19.10 to UM 20.04 (even if still in development) :clap::clap::clap:
It was the first upgrade (using UM since 16.04) that went really SMOOTH and FIXED all the issues I've encountered due to my mistakes by messing up with "apt". THIS IS SOOOOOOO GREAT :+1::+1::+1:

Thank you all involved into the development! YOU ARE GREAT :hugs:

Looking forward for the final UM 20.04 version :heart_eyes:

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4 Likes
#36

Hello, I was messing with the new 20.04 daily builds of Ubuntu MATE in GNOME Boxes and I have found a major issue. The Ubuntu MATE Welcome app will freeze the desktop and send the user back to the Lightdm login screen. However, this is especially critical as:

  • The Ubuntu MATE Welcome app is packaged as a Snap, meaning that this issue will affect other versons of Ubuntu MATE (18.04, 19.10, etc).

  • The application will run on login by default, meaning that the only way to be able to safely uninstall it without being immediately kicked out of the desktop is to run sudo snap remove ubuntu-mate-welcome through a TTY.

  • Snaps auto-update, meaning that there is no way for a user to easily prevent an issue like this from happening from what I know.

I have reported this here and I think this is an extremely critical problem!

#37

Try this and see if it works:

2 Likes
#38

Huh, it works but seeing as this was almost a month ago I think it's still important to see about getting this fixed in some way.

#39

Tested Daily (10/02/2020) on old Dell Core2 as Live USB. No issues. So installed over 19.10 root folder (including a format) with home left as-is. Then ran Software Updater.

I had a Brisk has quit unexpectedly message as soon as I opened the menu, which always seems to happen on this device on all recent releases, but I (auto-)reported as Bug 1862623 anyway.

But the upgrade issue I want to report here is probably not a bug per se, but could be an issue for upgraders. I use Compiz (for mouse switching of workspaces and placement of opening windows on specific monitors), and Compiz is no longer installed in Ubuntu MATE.

What happened without Compiz in place was that all windows opened without any windows management decoration. That's hard enough to deal with, but font sizes are affected too (way too large) and lots of minor issues. Solution is to enter MATE Tweak.

In MATE Tweak > Windows > Windows Manager selection was set to [blank] and a message in red displayed that the current window manager was unknown. Selecting either of the Marco entries brings everything back under control.

I would strongly suggest that the current warning in red remains displayed in MATE Tweak until the user's first visit to MATE Tweak, but that - in addition - one of the Marco WM's is temporarily selected for the user. The message could be updated to also indicate this action.

Leaving the WM as 'unknown' doesn't do anything for the user, who is either going to have to select something else or install Compiz without any WM, so it might be better to include a Macro WM in the meantime? It is a trade off decision between making it easier for those not confident in diagnosing and installing Compiz via Terminal by making it straightforward for less experienced users to install via Software Boutique then Synaptic, vs adding an extra step - of changing the MATE Tweak selection - for the Terminal user .

#40

8 posts were split to a new topic: Grub menu remains hidden in 20.04