Eric Stewart: Running Off At The Mouth

I’ve upgraded two systems using the Ubuntu Update Manager GUI to upgrade Ubuntu 11.10 (Oneiric Ocelot) to 12.04 LTS (Precise Pangolin).  The LTS stands for Long Term Support, meaning they will provide updates longer than they will for non-LTS versions of their software.

It hasn’t been without issues.

Here they are, with suggested solutions, in no particular order:

• I use Synergy a lot.  The Ubuntu 12.04 provided package has a crash-prone synergyc.  I suggest uninstalling it and downloading the package from the Synergy website.  Seems much more stable.  EDIT: You’ll want to (as root/sudo) “apt-mark hold synergy” to prevent Ubuntu from updating the package until they’ve fixed it.  Per the linked thread, you could also go to the beta version, but you’ll likely have to upgrade it across all systems.
• I also prefer XFCE4 to Unity – I particularly dislike the Unity interface; XFCE4 has a more traditional menu system and I can customize XFCE4 more easily.  Thing is, the menu icons appear to have been munged somewhere along the line.  Google suggested installing “xubuntu-artwork” (which will likely install a couple of other packages).  Fixed!  EDIT: After a reboot you get all sorts of appearance options, too – Xfce-dusk FTW!
• Doesn’t seem to want to remember my default browser.  Check under “Settings” – “Settings Manager” – “Preferred Applications”.  Chrome itself may not believe it’s the default browser after that but at least the damn menu icon won’t ask you which browser you want to launch.
• It may take some effort to get nVidia drivers installed. EDIT: Still think I don’t quite have them working on my workstation.
• Laptops: Hibernate apparently is disabled by default in 12.04 – menu options either aren’t there or are grayed out. Solution?  As root, create:

  /etc/polkit-1/localauthority/50-local.d/com.ubuntu.desktop.pkla

  Put in it:

  [Re-enable hibernate by default]
  Identity=unix-user:*
  Action=org.freedesktop.upower.hibernate
  ResultActive=yes

  and reboot.

More issues/resolutions as I encounter them.