Fedora 33 Annoyances

Update of 12/22/2020

I am really annoyed! Every week there is at least one critical OS update to be installed!

Main Post

I have recently upgraded from Fedora 32 to 33. However, I have experienced quite a bit of issues with this version. I have been using Fedora Linux now for several years and I always upgrade to the latest version when available.

The upgrade itself was not smooth as advertised. In the end, I had to do it manually using DNF commands. I presume, e.g. I had done one update to many using the Software app before the upgrade. Something conflicted with the upgrade. I don't remember the details anymore.

Since the latest upgrade, I had to a lot of software updates almost on a daily basis.

There were a few other, unexpected and unfamiliar issues. They were annoying, but not critical and I don't remember the details anymore.

Software App

I have never seen something like this before with earlier Fedora versions. Several times now, I have seen even different error messages when invoking this app.

Certain Wikipedia pages cause high CPU core usage on Linux

I have noticed it for some time that one of my 8 CPU cores would all of a sudden would remain running at 100% usage and that it was related to the Chrome browser. However, at any time I have several instances of the Chrome browser open each with multiple tabs, so I was never sure which web page was triggering this issue.

Today (7/14/2020), I was finally able to pinpoint the cause of the this issue. Previously, I had already a suspicion it was following Wikipedia web page, but until today I was not sure: 

List of mathematical symbols

Reference:

1. Google Chrome Version 84.0.4147.89 (Official Build) (64-bit)
2. Operating system: Fedora 32 (workstation edition; updated as of 7/14/2020)

Upgraded from Fedora 31 to Fedora 32

On Labor Day, I risked to upgrade my notebook from Fedora Workstation 31 to 32 (released on April 28). I followed the instructions provided in this timely Fedora Magazine article. The upgrade was fast, a breeze, and without a glitch. Not sure I noticed any significant improvements so far.

My Experience With New Fedora 31

At the end of October, I upgraded Fedora 30 to 31 without any problems. The upgrade was smooth and went very well! Bravo for that!

I can now also say with some certainty that Fedora 30 was a real garbage version of Fedora. I blogged about it here.

Almost all the very strange phenomena that I had to suffer through with Fedora seem to be gone. These phenomena were of such a kind that you wondered whether my newly purchased Dell Inspiron notebook (hardware) was to blame. No more frequent (sometimes three times a day) freezes of the operating system; no more weird black rectangles appearing in random locations on the screen; no more time varying sensitivity of the touchpad.

I am quite relieved that the ordeal with Fedora 30 is over!

New Fedora 30 Is Unstable

Posted: 6/12/2019  Updated/revision: 8/2/2019, 7/17/2019, 7/15/2019, 6/27/2019, 6/20/2019, 6/15/2019

A few days ago (7/9/2019) it was announced that IBM closed purchase of Red Hat. This does not alleviate my worries about the future of Fedora Linux distribution.

About around 6/12/2019, I upgraded from Fedora version 29 to 30. The upgrade went smoothly without a glitch or anything.

These are my experiences since the upgrade of 6/12/2019:

1. Fedora 30 is a sheer disaster. I am ready to dump Fedora. After about 6 or more OS updates it is still suffering from major issues: 1) the notebook touchpad sensitivity is very erratic and changes as time goes by (this is the most annoying) 2) It still freezes every so often and I have to reboot (maddening) 3) a black rectangular bar on the screen (as I write this post; see screen print below) 4) after reboot the sound is still turned off. It is becoming maddening and very frustrating! (8/2/2019)
2. Several OS updates later and one DNF upgrade later, I still see this annoying black rectangle across my screen and today it is particularly annoying because of its size and location. See screenshot below (7/17/2019)
3. Suffered at three freezes in about 24 hours after an operating system update using the Software app about two days ago. Decided to use dnf upgrade today, which, among other things, upgraded the Linux kernel. Keeping my fingers crossed! Before that Fedora 30 would freeze about every 2-3 days (7/15/2019)
4. Fedora 30 froze again despite operating system update just a day ago. I can say now that Fedora 30 freezes about every 2-3 days (6/27/19)
5. Fedora 30 froze least two more times since I reported it here on 6/12/19. Every time it happens during a routine activity working with the usual apps and totally unexpected (6/20/19)
6. For several days now, I notice frequently a single black rectangular bar appearing on my screen (size ranging from about 0.5 cm height to between 3-10 cm in width) in the upper half of my screen. Since I have a new notebook, I do not think my hardware is failing. I did not observe those bars Fedora 29 (update of 6/15/19)
7. Fedora twice became unresponsive within days and I had to reboot. It happened every time while I was doing some very routine things and I have no idea why Fedora became unresponsive. Only the second time was caught by the Problem Reporting program indicating that the “evolution-calendar-factory killed by SIGABRT”
8. When you reboot, the loudspeakers are turned off every time (a bit odd)

Screenshot of annoying black rectangle across my display (7/17/2019)

First Disappointment With Linux Fedora 29

Posted: 12/8/2018 Updated: 12/12/2018, 12/9/2018

Update Of 12/12/2018

Suffered now three application crashes by now. Two crashes came from the Files utility, which I find strange that such a standard utility becomes so brittle. The other application crash was caused by an application, which I was not able to identify.

Update Of 12/9/2018

Unfortunately, I was premature and had to change the original blog post title from “In Praise of Linux Fedora 29” to the current title.

As if I had come under a spell since publishing this blog, I noticed those annoying application is not responsive messages again with Fedora 29. And today (12/9/2018), my system crashed all of a sudden with a black screen of death, which I had not seen in a long time.

Original Post

For four long years I suffered from poor memory management with the Fedora (Workstation) operating system. Every few days, responsiveness would become molasses and I had to reboot.

A about a week ago, with apprehensions I dared to upgrade from Fedora 28 to Fedora 29 and to my great surprise, they finally tackled this poor memory management problem much to my satisfaction!

Special appreciation also for the very smooth upgrade process without any glitches or negative surprises so far!

Fed-up With Fedora Linux

Posted: 3/27/2015  Updated: 4/29/15, 4/11/2015

Update 4/29/1515

I forgot to mention that the memory (RAM) management in Fedora truly sucks and I noticed this since I first installed Fedora on my notebook early last year (2014).

I usually have about half a dozen application running at any time. Usually, three instances of Google Chrome browser with total of about 15-20 tabs opened. My 6 GB of RAM is about 90% used up all the time, plus my Swap memory is over 70% used. Responses to keyboard etc. become very sluggish. In this respect, Microsoft Windows is doing a much better job.

This is so annoying!!!!

Update 4/11/15

Printer Installation Failed

Just tried to print a document on our HP laser printer for the first time after all these reinstalls of linux (see below). Apparently, linux recognized the proper printer model, but failed to correctly install the necessary driver this time (Message: printing stopped, run hp plug in). This is upsetting because with Fedora Linux 20 and with my earliest installs of Fedora Linux 21 it used to work nicely out of the box with the same printer as it should be. In this day and age there is no excuse for that happening!

Who are these amateur programmers working for Fedora Linux?

Original

It appears both Fedora 20 & 21 (Workstation) have become instable upon installation of updates. I have now done 4-5 full reinstalls of Fedora on my Lenovo notebook over the past several weeks. I do not install many other applications and I do not claim to be a Linux expert.

Everytime, the instability was triggered by operating system updates prompted by the default Software application. Following first several updates, the boot up after installation ended in Linux emergency mode. Now, with Fedora 21 the latest update done yesterday ended in a Kernel panic (In the Windows world aka Blue Screen of Death).

Today, I googled for crashes with Fedora, but did not find much relevant information other than that there is a Fedora project called Fedup to upgrade Fedora (very aptly named project). Unfortunately, the webpages regarding this project were not very intuitive.

Here is a screenshot of yesterday’s Kernel panic:

The second line from the top says “junk in compressed archive”. Do these Fedora developers not test their stuff before they release it? Grrr!

Linux Wonderland

Introduction

I intend to present here my experiences of abandoning Microsoft Windows 8.1 for Fedora Linux on my new Lenovo notebook.

Finally A Better Graphics Driver Installed

My notebook has a Nvidia Geforce graphics card installed, but Fedora only installed a default driver for the Intel graphics, which is also present. The resolution of the display was underwhelming.

Contacted Nvidia support. My commendation for the prompt Nvidia support. After several email exchanges, my case was escalated and then the level 2 engineer from Nvidia pointed me to the bumblebee project in my case, because their driver installation script would not work on my notebook. Fedora had installation instructions for this driver and it worked for me.

Hardware Enumeration Is Iffy

This was shocking to me to learn that Linux command line commands like lspci do not completely and correctly enumerate all hardware devices on your computer. My Nvidia Geforce was never listed neither from the beginning nor after I installed the proprietary Nvidia driver through bumblebee project.

This is the least I expect from a great operating system that is capable of listing all hardware devices on my system.

Fedora Visual Files Utility Is Bad

Rather primitive I would say compared to Windows Explorer. E.g. you cannot expand the file name column to see the whole name of the file when you opt to see many of the other columns. This is truly awful and drives me mad!

Good Bye Microsoft Windows 8

Welcome Linux

I have finally begun to liberate myself from Microsoft Windows by installing Fedora Linux on my recently purchased new Lenovo notebook with touchscreen.

The Unix operating system and its universe of applications (many of them free) have come a long way since then.

Installation and setup was a breeze. The new Cinnamon desktop is quite intuitive and so on and so on.

Microsoft Needs To Get Its Act Together

Windows 8.0 & 8.1 broke the camel’s back. I am a software developer and always welcoming new technologies, but Windows 8 is too much. I have been using Windows ever since Windows 95 and even before that.

Especially Windows 8.1 comes with very annoying help pop-ups that block parts of the screen and they would not go away no matter what I tried except for disabling the touch screen. I am sorry, but this is aggravating!