back to 12.10...

[Scott Kitterman]

girard henri <girardhenri at free.fr> wrote:

>It's strange because ubuntu is always going smooth on update... Maybe 
>kde is more particuliar
>
>Le 07/05/2013 06:14, O. Sinclair a écrit :
>> On 06/05/2013 12:49, Jörg von Frantzius wrote:
>>> Hi Sinclair,
>>>
>>> I'm not on 13.04 yet but would like to, and I'm a bit worried now
>about
>>> the problems with Broadcom wireless drivers. Do you have the
>>> bcmwl-kernel-source package installed? Could you tell a bit what the
>>> symptoms were?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Jörg
>>>
>>>
>>> 2013/5/3 O. Sinclair <o.sinclair at gmail.com 
>>> <mailto:o.sinclair at gmail.com>>
>>>
>>>     After a disaster upgrade to 13.04 thought I share my experience
>and
>>>     also ask a question.
>>>
>>>     For starters: the upgrade as such went smooth. It was when I
>>>     rebooted the headaches started.. with plasma crashing on login,
>>>     endless error messages, desktop looking weird and freezes.
>>>
>>>     I eventually found out that in kernel 3.6 or 7 and up to at
>least
>>>     2.8 the vgaswitcheroo function is buggered. This is the one that
>>>     assist us unlucky "hybrid graphics" owners to kill off one gpu
>or
>>>     switch between them. In my case I either kill my AMD or watch my
>fan
>>>     eating battery alive. AMD proprietaty drivers stopped working
>after
>>>     11.10 and yes I have tried Catalyst Legacy.
>>>
>>>     So OK thought perhaps I could live with that after a looong
>first
>>>     login I have to log out and then on second login things look
>kind of
>>>     normal.
>>>
>>>     Then I discover that the Brodacomm wireless driver has gone
>buggered
>>>     since upgrade and I can not downgrade. Any new wifi connection
>>>     refuses to work.
>>>
>>>     That is where I gave up and reverted to my trusty Remastersys
>>>     created 12.10 KDE 4.10.0 custom install usb.
>>>
>>>     My question is now: I do not want to upgrade to 4.10.2 via
>backports
>>>     PPA as it has issues in KDEPIM but want to only go to 4.10.1 .
>Does
>>>     anyone know of way of doing that?
>>>
>>>     For me with AMD/Intel hybrid graphics and Broadcomm wireless
>13.04
>>>     is a no-go, will have to wait for 13.10 and see what happens.
>>>
>> the symptom is that any new connection will not work and your logs
>are 
>> flooded with error messages when the wifi is switched on.
>>
>> I could not even work in a console as I would get constant errors 
>> while trying to type commands. This with existing and working 
>> connections. I gave up when I could not connect to a new wifi router 
>> in our house that others had no problems with. Reverting to 12.10 all
>
>> works as expected.
>>
>> The bug is known, it has to do with bcmwl-kernel-source version.
>>
>> I agree with Scott: try out a live CD before anything else. For me 
>> (note ME, not others) there is nothing to gain from the upgrade. The 
>> kernel has issues with hybrid graphics (also known) and my wifi
>driver 
>> goes bonkers.
>>
>> I have skipped versions before and will do this time. I would love to
>
>> go Libreoffice 4 but can survive with 3.6
>>
>> Kindly,
>> Sinclair
>>

The bits in question here are common. It's more likely related to a specific hardware configuration. 

Scott K