installed ubuntu 8.10 yesterda. everything works fine and then the monitor "grays out" and freezes everything, including the mouse, then the mouse gets a little jumpy and everything eventually goes back to normal

sounds like some background process is tying up the computer. like firefox or adobe flash maybe?

speaking of top thats a good command to run in a terminal. Open a Terminal from the menu Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type:

top

this will show you cpu and memory usage in real time. press q to quit, or k to kill an application.

i think that the application you suggested might be correct as my wife
confessed to trying to watch a movie when it started graying out. sorry to
say that "top" wouldn't work at all and incorrect command showed up.

f

On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 9:44 PM, nhasian <<email address hidden>
> wrote:

> Your question #60494 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/60494
>
> Status: Open => Answered
>
> nhasian proposed the following answer:
> sounds like some background process is tying up the computer. like
> firefox or adobe flash maybe?
>
> speaking of top thats a good command to run in a terminal. Open a
> Terminal from the menu Applications → Accessories → Terminal and type:
>
> top
>
> this will show you cpu and memory usage in real time. press q to quit,
> or k to kill an application.
>
> --
> If this answers your question, please go to the following page to let us
> know that it is solved:
>
> https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/60494/+confirm?answer_id=0
>
> If you still need help, you can reply to this email or go to the
> following page to enter your feedback:
> https://answers.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/60494
>
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

 I went back to synaptic manager and removed the adobe flash plugin. I didn't really need it as there were plenty of alternatives. I used to run in windows and that required adobe but its not needed here(I think??)

f

since the problem was sporatic(it only happened once in awhile), I went back
and removed adobe. I have had no problems in the last hour or so. I am
thinking(hoping) its fixed. If I surf my usual six hours of reading news and
such, and get no gray screen I will consider it fixed .

thanks for your suggestions

f
p.s. why didn't "top" work? I tryed typing top itself and also with sudo
with the same result.

On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:47 AM, freddie sealey <
<email address hidden>> wrote:

> Your question #60494 on Ubuntu changed:
> https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/60494
>
> You gave more information on the question:
> I went back to synaptic manager and removed the adobe flash plugin. I
> didn't really need it as there were plenty of alternatives. I used to
> run in windows and that required adobe but its not needed here(I
> think??)
>
> f
>
> --
> You received this question notification because you are a direct
> subscriber of the question.
>

Hi,

Do you have the latest drivers in the repositories? Go up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Administration - Hardware Drivers

That should make things look a little better. If you've an ati card then there's another tweak worth doing. It might also be worth going up to the top taskbar and click on

System - Preferences - Appearance

then click on the end tab and switch desktop effects off. I keep switching them on for enjoying when i'm doing simple tasks but when watching multimedia i often switch them off. Sadly you might need the latest Adobe Player but it's best to get it from their website rather than the repositories (with most packages it's exactly the other way around of course)
http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
On their page the drop-down list halfway down the page has Ubuntu at the end.

Good luck and regards from
Tom :)

well its all tweeked :) haven't had a problem since taking adobe out of the picture so to speak and have tweeked the gstreamer!

easy as pie, thanks

f

Brilliant, nicely fixed :)
Regards from
Tom :)

Just one more thing to cover :) If adobe flash is chosen in synaptic manager... choose adobe flash installer also and appy them together and everything works veryyyy smoothly ! otherwise, its a bunch a crud(which is what I experienced almost painfully.

and thanks again, Tom

freddie