suddenly, 13.04

Running Lubuntu-recently "upgraded" to 13.04 from 12.10.
Now my media players are skipping, stuttering, freezing & pixelating.
For audio, gnomeplayer skips so bad it's unuseable.
Audacious skips bad enough that I can't stand it.
VLC plays audio just fine, but HD videos are freezing and pixelating, while my CPU gauge stays at 100%.
Driver issue?
Should i go back to 12.10?
WTH ??

Athlon 3200

 

And displaying a local .gif maxes out the cpu now?
This doesnt seem right.

 

This is one of the "fun items about using Linux!" In solving this, you will find something new about your system. If you don't toss it out a window!:cry I used to keep my laptop open in front of my desktop and type one character at a time. At least you do not have a solid black screen from a broken xorg.conf file.

You may have some dependencies that did not get updated. Do you have the switch set to "auto update" or did you throw the switch yourself?

At worse, you can copy /home to an external drive, or separate partition. Then reinstall.

Here is how to get a Pure Lubuntu back. You may have some gnome or KDE hooks. Firefox used to be Gnome dependant, and I favored KDE. Both gave me headaches.

Best of Success!!

 

There is indeed a learning curve from a Windows Immigrant (I'm working on getting my Linux green card :-D ).
I can tell you that I was running Lubuntu 12.10, and did the automated upgrade when i saw the notification. I wasn't having these problems with 12.10 .

Thanks for the information. I will look into these leads, as well as my own research this week and report back with results ASAP.
I'm also welcoming any further input from anyone.

:major

 

Fed UP, did yoiu make any progress on your system?

 

Yep.
Decided to just reinstall 13.04.
Call me lazy, but it solved several other issues as well, and didn't take long at all.
:major

 

Also, Interestingly enough, I frankensteined an Athlon LE-1640 desktop this week, and the performance is noticeably better than the 3200+, same OS - and the power consumption of the LE is just about half that of the 3200+.

 

LOL, I did the same thing before.

Glad you got all solved, and amazing a new system works better. Could be different memory chips or BIOS settings.

 

Glad you got that worked out to your satisfaction. If you're still welcoming further input, here's mine...

I've learned over the years to stick with LTS versions of Ubuntu on my main production machine, i.e. 10.04 LTS, 12.04 LTS, and the future 14.04 LTS, etc... I view the "in between" versions ending in *.10 and odd-numbered *.04 as release candidates with proposed new features that are being tested and polished up for the next LTS! Also, even when I update/upgrade from LTS to LTS (most recently from 10.04 to 12.04), I'll typically wait about 30-60 days before I upgrade my main machine; this allows a lot of unforseen and unanticipated "bugs" to be shakened, worked out, and solved before I take the plunge ON MY MAIN MACHINE!

However, I've still got an itch to scratch for the latest and greatest, so I have various Virtual Machines setup in VirtualBox. THESE are my "latest & greatest" playground, including 13.04 (which is of particular interest to me for the advertised speed increase associated with more efficient architecture). If something is amiss with an upgrade path, I'll usually learn about it with the VM first. And even if I can't troubleshoot and remedy the issue, I simply delete the corrupted-beyond-repair VM and pull up the most recent working backup. Takes about 5 minutes, and my main production machine is never in jeopardy!

If this strategy will work for you, I've also learned to allocate at least 15GB of disk space to most full-fledged distros, i.e. Ubuntu, Fedora, OpenSUSE, etc..., as an unzipped install is typically about 5GB, plus update/patches, plus another 5GB to be examined in an upgrade and swapped around during the install. Not sure exactly what happens there, but 10GB virtual disks typically yield an "insufficient disk space - remove some programs" message after a full cycle of updates. I could simply reinstall from the ISO image, but that would conceal the upgrade issues you just described...so I now use 15GB disks and haven't seen that message again. Just a suggestion for your consideration. Of course, if the Lubuntu 12.10 machine is YOUR test machine, not your main box, my suggestion is irrelevant...carry on! ;-)

 

Thanks Hedon

Your advice on LTS in duly noted, and thanks for your input. At this time, I dont have a "main machine". I had a high end Phenom 2 custom system (when it was new, it was high end) and it fried on me - but i think the CPU might still be functional (Phenom 2 x4 3.0 Ghz). I have access to 4 or 5 older AMD machines, and I'm playing Dr. Frankenstein, trying to get the best and fastest combination of parts I can assemble from what I have access to.
I have no critical data to store on HD's. I mosty use my machines as media centers, and moderate to heavy web browsing. All machines I have access to are subject to experiments of any type.
This machine I'm using now is an AM2+ mobo - with an Athlon LE.
My Phenom 2 x4 is also AM2+. I'm gonna look into compatiblity and possibly brain surgery - although i know the Phenom is coming off a "high performance' MSI mobo, and I have questions about sockets. If I could get that Phenom working in this factory E-Machines AM2+ I'd be thrilled. That chip handled anything I ever threw at it and it never broke a sweat - for years.
I also have a Powercolor 6970HD that I'm hoping is still good, trying to figure out how to incorporate that - the size of that 6970 wont let it fit on this cheap mobo-the RAM sticks are in the way. (I do have a PSU to push it)
So thats whats up!

:major