Gutsy issues

I like my eye candy. Without Beryl or Compiz, I would have found no real reason to switch to Ubuntu. I know it makes me seem shallow, but seriously, I have found it very productive and rewarding to have the 3D desktop switching effects. I use GIMP a lot in the course of my work, use NVU/Kompozer for a lot of things, I keep firefox open, Tend to keep a nautilus window open and terminal is usually kept open, switching to other desktops by moving my mouse to the top corner and then clicking is really fantastic to me and when it is smooth and cool-looking, that is always a plus.

Feisty had this locking up problem. Ctrl+Alt+Backspace wouldn't even work, the clock stops ticking, keyboard and mouse don't respond, except the mouse pointer will still move. The problem is still not solved and is possibly worse in Gutsy. See this thread. I personally think it lies with S-ATA drives, My box doesn't have quite enough memory and when it is writing to swap, that is when the lockup occurs. I am a habitual Ctrl+S saver, so I usually don't lose any work, and the only thing I find I can do on the keyboard is hold Alt+Sysrq S, U, B, - This (S) syncs all mounted filesystems, (U) remounts all mounted filesystems read-only, and (B) Reboots the system.

This sucks, Frankly. Almost an Ubuntu killer to me. I have been using Ubuntu installed since Dapper Drake, and I have gotten quite used to it. It is a philosophical stance regarding Open Source that I have and other distros don't seem to have the same type of support network available when things go wrong (and I am still a noob, believe me)

Messing around with my system (I experienced alsa sound issues) (trying to fix the lock-up issue) I lost my USB ports. At first I thought it was a printer issue (wasn't using any other USB devices at the time) and troubleshot that for hours to no avail, then realized my external USB harddrive wouldn't mount when I turned it on. USB flashdrives won't mount and their little led's won't light up. Now doing a reinstall of my Ubuntu partition and crossing my fingers for the best. I will still experience the lockup issue I am sure, but at least I will have a fresh install of Gutsy without all the baggage that is on the machine since Edgy, the last time I did a fresh install.
I am a computergeek and a tech at heart, but if some of these issues are not solved, and fast - Well, it makes it difficult for me to suggest switching off of Microsoft to anyone else who is not such a computergeek.