[Discuss] Ubuntu problems

[Murray Strome]

1. Ubuntu "hangs" and becomes unresponsive on my laptop with SSD and 
must be turned off with the power switch to get it going again.  I 
thought that I had it working better by moving the Chrome cache to RAM, 
but while it seems to hang a bit less often it still happens. Also, I 
have to manually delete the cache, mount the temporary file system in 
RAM, create a folder in it for the cache, then create a link to it from 
the Chrome cache in my home directory.  The script that contains the 
instructions to do this does not work. Also, the fstab entry to 
automatically mount the RAM Disk does not work.

2. On my desktop, (which also has SSD, but also regular disk where most 
of my temporary files are located), after recent updates, I have a very 
annoying display problem. Basically, when I switch workspaces, whatever 
was on the one where I was previously working persists and only bits and 
pieces of the items on the one to which I have switched show up until I 
click on some empty space. Then it clears up. It is as if the memory for 
the display is not getting cleared properly. I don' see any errors, but 
in the X-Diagnostic settings, it has some options that I could try:
      Disable bootloader graphics (it says that Grub loads the VESA 
framebuffer driver which could cause issues when switching to a real driver)
      Disable VESA framebuffer driver (which is loaded early during the 
boot which could cause issues when switching to a real driver)
      Disable PAT memory (this pagetable extension can interfere with 
the memory management of proprietary drivers under some
                                                 circumstances and cause 
lagging or failures to allocate video memory. )

The VGA compatible controller is AMD/ATI Richland [Radeon HD 8570D]
                                                       Subsystem: 
ASUSTeK Computer Inc. 8526
         according to Sysinfo.

Any idea as to the downside of disabling these things, and what I should 
try first?

Thanks,

Murray

PS I plan to be at the SIG on Saturday.  MS