Hey folks. I've had an on-again, off-again relationship with Linux for over 20 years. Usually, my attempts to use it are either thwarted by issues installing, issues booting, or general problems while using it... leading to “catastrophic failure” that I can't fix without digging into hours of research and terminal commands.
Windows 11 (even 10) are rock solid for me, even as a very heavy multitasker. No crashes. No needing to reboot, unless I'm forced to with an update, and really no issues with any hardware or software I was running.
But with Linux, I just can't believe how unstable it is, even when I do the absolute basic things.
I'm trying to learn why this is, and how I can prevent these issues from coming up. As I said, I'm committed to using Linux now (I'm done with American software), so I'm open to suggestions.
For context, I'm using a Framework laptop, which is fully (and officially) supports Fedora and Ubuntu. Since Fedora has American ties, I've settled with Ubuntu.
All things work as they should: fingerprint scanner, wifi, bluetooth, screen dimming, wake up from suspend, external drives, NAS shared folders, etc. I've even got VirtualBox running Windows 11 for the few paid software that I need to load up from time to time.
But I'm noticing issues that seemingly pop out of nowhere on the software/os end of things.
For example, after having no issues updating software, I get this an error: "something went wrong, but we're not sure what it is."
Then sometimes I'll be using Firefox, I'll open a new tab to type in a search term or URL, and the typing will "lag", then the address bar will flicker like it's reloading, and it doesn't respond well to my mouse clicks. I have to close it out, then start over for it to resolve.
Then I'll open a different app, sometimes it might open, sometimes it won't.
Or an app will freeze for no obvious reason, and I'll get a popup asking to wait or quit.
Another time I left my computer while I went out for a walk, came back, and it was like I just rebooted... all my work was gone, and it was starting fresh from the login screen.
I'm trying not to overload things, and I'm doing maybe 1/5th of what I'd normally be doing when running windows. But I don't understand why it's so unstable.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
FWIW, I'm not keen to switch away from Ubuntu, because I do still want official support if there's ever a problem with getting hardware to work.
UPDATE: Wow, I did not expect to get so many responses! Amazing!
Per suggestions, I ran a memtest86 for over 3 hours and it was clean.
I installed Fedora 41 and am now setting it up. Seems good so far, and elevated permissions can be authorized with biometrics! This was not something I had to. Ubuntu, so awesome there!
Any specific tips for Fedora that I should know? Obviously, no more Snap packages now! 😂
UPDATE 2: Ok, Fedora seems waaaay more stable than Ubuntu (and Mint). No strangeness like before... but not everything works as easily. For example, getting a bridged network adapter to work in virtualbox was one-click easy on Ubuntu... not so much on Fedora (still trying to get it working). And Virtualbox didn't even run my VM without more terminal hackery.
But the OS seems usable, and I'm still setting things up.
One thing I have noticed, however. When I search for how to fix or do something, nearly all websites and forums reference Debian/Ubuntu commands, so the fragmentation there is a little annoying
You ever run a memtest?
I did a full memtest and chkdsk BEFORE installing Linux (I'm dual booting right now), and things were fine. Again, I only seem to be having issues in Linux, not Windows (native or through virtualbox!).
Even just now, Digikam is crashing, but it won't let me force quit (waiting just brings up the window again).
Which memtest did you use?
It was the Windows Memory Diagnostic Tool. Reboots into the diagnostics utility and tests. Same with the CHKDSK, all from the system recovery boot (no through the Windows GUI).
As others have mentioned I'd use a proper tester (aka memtest86+), it will probably take overnight.
Shit. Well, if I have to, I have to.
But this doesn't explain why it would affect only Linux (assuming bad RAM). That's the sort of thing that would cause Windows to go into a frenzy, and I simply don't have that experience with BSOD or crashes like that.
The differences in memory management and allocation could explain it. Linux is far more aggressive at cache IO I think.
It does seem like a hardware issue to me too...
It might be a driver issue... Windows does have the resources to test them more than Linux community, so - kinda hardware related - but Framework should be able to help here.
And as others have said, try memtest, I did on a laptop with similar issues to yours and found the RAM was the culprit. Personally, I recommend using this version, not the passmark version: https://memtest.org/
It'll boot from a USB stick
It will take hours.
For Linux use 'sudo journalctl -xe' (from memory) - it'll explain the issues it finds, as best it can. You'll probably see something in there
If you're dual booting with Windows open the event log viewer and check under System (from memory) and see if there's any red X warning logs... esp. Hardware ones.
Thanks. I've made the bootable memtest USB drive, and will test later.
That's a good idea also snaps can run like hell in general but more so if memory is out of wack.
Also if they did pay for support what did canonical have to say?
That's what I was thinking too... If they're running Ubuntu then they're probably installing packages through snaps, and that's always been the worst experience for me. Those apps lag down my whole system, crash or lock up, and generally are unusable. I run Debian but have run into apps that wanted me to use a snap install. One package I managed to find a direct installer that is rock-solid in comparison to the snap version, and the rest of the programs I abandoned.
Firefox (since it was mentioned) is one of those things I believe Ubuntu installs as a snap, despite there being a perfectly usable .deb package. I applaud the effort behind snap and others to make a universal installation system, but it is so not there yet and shouldn't be the default of any distro.
Yeah I run debian too and see no issues with Deb packages and flatpak and I run debian unstable on my desktop so i am asking for trouble and don't see the types of issues OP described. Snaps seem to be the issue. I know they said they wanted Comercial support but unless you are buying a support plan now. Trying debian stable might be worth a shot. Since once it works it works for a good long while.
Agreed on Debian stable. Long ago I tried running servers under Ubuntu... that was all fine until the morning I woke up to find all of the servers offline because a security update had destroyed the network card drivers. Debian has been rock-solid for me for years and buying "commercial support" basically means paying someone else to do google searches for you.
I don't know if I've ever tried flatpaks, I thought they basically had the same problems as snaps?
Na flatpaks are lighter and have better access control. But I only use them for basic applications like games or spotify or Obsidian
They are a little heavy on disk space but nothing too bad. They don't trash your block device layout with bind mounts
Ah that's good. Disk space isn't an issue here, I have around 105TB of storage, but my desktop is an older machine with only 24GB of memory so being lightweight is somewhat of a requirement.
This in insightful! What are other distros using for their software store? Flatpak or native Debian packages (or both)?
Mint is basically Ubuntu with a lot of the questionable decisions fixed (and uses Cinnamon instead of Gnome, so it's a bit more Windows like).
It doesn't have snaps (though they provide instructions to add them if you want), it uses apt for packages and I believe pulls from a mixture of the Ubuntu repos and their own. It also has Flatpak out of the box and the software center does both, and clearly marks which you're going to install with an easy drop down to switch if both are available.
Flatpak has been pretty solid for me overall, though there are occasional gotchas.
Honestly, I'd recommend going with Mint, pretty much anything that works with Ubuntu will work with it, and it's better put together in my opinion (and doesn't try to sell you a pro subscription by implying your system will be insecure if you don't, which Ubuntu does). I know you're not looking to switch, but I've honestly been very unimpressed with Ubuntu for the last, oh, decade or so
I'm not sure about other distros, I've just heard a lot of complaints about snaps under Ubuntu. Cura was the snap I tried on my system that constantly crashed until I found a .deb package. Now it runs perfectly fine without sucking up a ton of system memory. Thunderbird is managed directly by debian, and firefox-esr is provided by a Mozilla repo so they all get installed directly instead of through 3rd-party software (although I think I tried upgrading Firefox to a snap version once and it was equally unstable). Now I just avoid anything that doesn't have a direct installer.