Comment 22 for bug 117651

Hi, Leann! After our out-of-towner, I had some time last week & weekend
to give the HH-alpha distro (LiveCD) a test-run -- here's my results,
plus some questions:

1. I downloaded v8.04 and burned it...

2. Booted the LiveCD on Friday evening at approx. 10:00pm

3. As it was never very difficult (only unpredictable as to exactly
when) to experience a system-freeze with v7.10 -- and it didn't seem to
matter what I was doing, e.g., bash/com-window, Firefox surfing, playing
a game, etc. -- I decided to simply play mah-jong until either the
freeze happened again or I got tired. ;-)

4. After about 90 minutes, I got tired (had better things to do that
late at night), so...

5. I left v8.04 running (from the LiveCD), just let it go to
screen-saver, intending to get back to it the following morning
(Saturday). But I didn't...

6. Instead, I left the PC running (screen-saver) all weekend, only
returned to it this evening (Monday), approx. 70 hours later. Eager to
see: was it frozen? v7.10 would'a been, without question.

7. Nope, er, yup -- v8.04 was *not* frozen! Hooray -- small victory!

8. I went ahead and ran/played mah-jong again for about 20 minutes,
thinking that maybe I could tip it over its edge... stayed solid &
working until I shut it down.

So, apparently v8.04 is not as prone to freezing as was v7.10 -- Yes,
I'm a skeptic, from experience in debugging other kinds of interactive
systems. It's very hard to "prove the negative", i.e., "it *won't ever*
freeze"... Only long, hard hours of actual use will build that kind of
confidence.

But there's your early test result -- v8.04 did not freeze on my PC
(where 7.10 would routinely, unpredictably freeze, usually within a
couple of hours after (re)boot) after a period of over 70 uptime hours,
with light interactive use. To me, promising but inconclusive.

I'd wonder what the developers would think about this test result... Is
it usefully indicative of a solution to this "my system randomly
freezes" problem? Can my own testing "technique" (mah-jong!) be
improved to give it actually a better shakedown trial?

Any advice as to what should be next? Given the unusability of my
current v7.10 install on this PC (and my desire to actually start using
Linux/Ubuntu with a vengeance, both for personal learning and to
undertake my efforts to ultimately replace Windows throughout my
home-office & family's PCs):

a) Should I next proceed to install v8.04 from the LiveCD, with the
understanding that it's an Alpha release?

b) If so, what limitations and/or issues should I be prepared to deal
with (other than the recurrence of the system-freeze problem under
more-than-light use)? In particular, would I be able to deploy various
common utilities and applications (e.g., Emacs, Open Office,
virt-machines, WINE, etc.), with the understanding that the platform is
indeed pre-release and unstable?

c) If I understand Ubuntu's release terminology, the Hardy Heron v8.04
is scheduled for final release in early August 2008, right? So my own
liabilities would likely include occasional alpha-, and later beta-,
release updates, right, up to the final release? And how often might I
anticipate interim alpha/beta releases?

d) I presume that affirmative answers to the above 3 questions, the
decision to install v8.04 as-is, would put me fully in the pre-release
testers camp, right? I'm willing, if you think this is a good idea.
I'm willing to proceed on this basis, to use v8.04 as an unstable (but
hopefully non-freezing) platform just for learning, leaving my own
home-office "full deployment" until HH/8.04 is in final release.

Let me know, please, what you and the developers think about my
questions above... With your guidance, I'm willing to become a part-time
field tester, if that helps the Community and HH/v8.04 ...

warmest regards,
   -- Lorin

Lorin Ricker
10781 Holden Circle
Franktown, CO 80116

    cell: (303)916-4772
email: <email address hidden>

On 3/10/2008 9:45 AM, Leann Ogasawara wrote:
> Hi Lorin and Michal,
>
> The Hardy Heron Alpha series is currently under development and contains
> an updated version of the kernel. It would be helpful if you could test
> the latest Hardy Alpha release: http://www.ubuntu.com/testing . You
> should be able to then test the new kernel via the LiveCD. If you can,
> please verify if this bug still exists or not and report back your
> results. Thanks.
>