[21:42] <alichtman> Hey, I've got a really weird issue that popped up for me today. I turned my monitor on when I got up this morning and got a black screen. Couldn't revive it or enter any keystrokes to do anything, so I powered off the computer with the power switch. I restarted and (applied some pending updates I'd installed) now can not type all the characters on my keyboard in chat apps like Discord or Signal. Otherwise everything 
[21:42] <alichtman> works fine. Where do I even start debugging this?
[21:42] <alichtman> The original cause of the crash was an Xorg page allocation failure
[21:42] <alichtman> not sure that's relevant though
[21:43] <alichtman> I was in #ubuntu and it was pointed out to me that those are both electron apps
[21:44] <Bashing-om> alichtman: Xorg does control the keyboard - maybe re-install xorg ?
[21:44] <alichtman> that seems scary lmao
[21:44] <alichtman> my gut reaction is to not do that
[21:45] <alichtman> $ sudo apt reinstall xorg and then restart?
[21:45] <alichtman> Or should I just restore from a backup?
[21:46] <Bashing-om> alichtman: Mihght be good to ask the package manager what it thinks of the overall situation - ; sudo apt -f install ; sudo dpkg -C ' to preclude inconsisyent packages.
[21:47] <alichtman> 0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
[21:48] <alichtman> Here's my uname -a: Linux arctic 5.6.14-050614-generic #202005200733 SMP Wed May 20 07:38:05 UTC 2020 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux
[21:48] <Bashing-om> !info linux-image-generic
[21:48] <tomreyn> that's an outdated mainline build
[21:49] <alichtman> Should I update the kernel?
[21:49] <tomreyn> only if you weant things to work and not have unfixed security vulnerabilities.
[21:50] <alichtman> :)
[21:50] <alichtman> sudo apt-get dist-upgrade is the command I should run?
[21:50] <tomreyn> what did you run to get this kernel image?
[21:51] <tomreyn> you can't get this through apt, you must have gotten it manually.
[21:51] <alichtman> I had a lot of issues with the original kernel so I had to install a newer (then) kernel with this: https://github.com/pimlie/ubuntu-mainline-kernel.sh
[21:51] <alichtman> GPU driven, mainly
[21:52] <alichtman> This was me: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1240879/rx-5500-xt-ubuntu-20-10-instability-crashing-drmamdgpu-dm-commit-planes-cons
[21:52] <tomreyn> so use this script to install the current non rc kernel
[21:53] <tomreyn> and do so regularly, after removing all but the latest two kernel images.
[21:54] <tomreyn> with mainline builds, you're pretty much on your own, the same goes for ubuntu versions which are in development.
[21:54] <alichtman> How do I get on the "update my kernel whenever a new stable kernel is released" train?
[21:55] <tomreyn> read the github readme for the script.
[21:55] <tomreyn> i'm assuming by "stable kernel" you're referring to a non-rc mainline kernel build
[21:56] <alichtman> No, I know how to use the script. I just didn't want to have to use it in the first place. How do normal Ubuntu users keep their kernel up to date (and how do I get my system back to a point where I don't have to worry about this?)
[21:56] <alichtman> I would make some different decisions about setting up my system now than I did a few months ago
[21:57] <alichtman> I was just inexperienced (not that I really know what I'm doing fully now, either)
[21:57] <tomreyn> the latest supported kernel version in groovy is a 5.4 kernel (other than oem, which i think is 5.6)
[21:57] <alichtman> I'm running the 5.6.14 kernel, so I'm not outdated
[21:57] <alichtman> I'm ahead of the current release, right?
[21:58] <tomreyn> if that's too old for your hardware then running mainline for now may be the right thing to do. alternatively, you could consider using a PPa, such as the oibf or padoka ppa
[21:58] <tomreyn> *oibaf
[21:58] <tomreyn> you're running a higher kernel version than the default kernel in grovy
[21:58] <alichtman> Correct
[21:58] <alichtman> I had an AMD gpu that kept acting up
[21:59] <tomreyn> the higher version does not mean that it is a more recent build
[21:59] <alichtman> and bumping up to a newer kernel was suggested
[21:59] <alichtman> Oh?
[21:59] <tomreyn> your kernel image was built on May 20 07:38:05 UTC 2020
[21:59] <alichtman> right
[22:00] <tomreyn> chances are that the default groovy kernel image was built later than that
[22:00] <alichtman> Aren't the versions reproducible? I was under the impression that a 5.4 build on day X and a 5.4 build on day Y should be identical
[22:00] <tomreyn> this can matter for security, and for backported patches
[22:01] <alichtman> right
[22:01] <tomreyn> 5.4 is a major and minor version number, but kernel versions consist of three numbers.
[22:02] <alichtman> gotcha, I didn't consider the patch number
[22:02] <tomreyn> if you look at https://www.kernel.org/ you'll see the latest mainline kernel versions for all trees the kernel developers support
[22:02] <alichtman> so the right course of action here is to grab which kernel?
[22:03] <alichtman> I don't want to paste a wall of text but the available versions to me are everything up to v5.8.0
[22:04] <alichtman> The list is pulled from kernel.ubuntu.com
[22:04] <tomreyn> https://kernel.ubuntu.com/~kernel-ppa/mainline/
[22:04] <tomreyn> 5.8.3 is the latest
[22:05] <alichtman> yes, I misread the output
[22:05] <alichtman> 5.8.3 is the latest I can install
[22:05] <alichtman> I should do that?
[22:05] <alichtman> also thank you for helping me through this
[22:06] <alichtman> I know I've asked a lot of basic sysadmin questions
[22:07] <tomreyn> you have four options i can think of: (a) keep updating to the latest mainline kernel builds until groovy provides a default kernel image which has at least the version you need; (b) try the grooxy default kernel again, hoping that hardware support for your hardware has been backported (not very likely); (c) try the linux-oem kernel, which i think is at 5.6, but this kernel is a bit dodgy; (d) see if you can get a recent kernel, Xorg, and 
[22:07] <tomreyn> mesa/graphics driver from one of the PPAs I mentioned, oibaf or padoka.
[22:07] <alichtman> Here's my final hardware for reference: https://pcpartpicker.com/b/cdDxFT
[22:07] <tomreyn> i think the last one may serve you best
[22:08] <alichtman> the Nvidia card I have now is pretty stable
[22:08] <alichtman> unlike the AMD one I had before
[22:08] <alichtman> so I might be ok with a default kernel?
[22:08] <tomreyn> oh you have an nvidia? i thought you said you had an amdgpu driven one
[22:08] <alichtman> I did, and then got rid of it
[22:08] <alichtman> because I couldn't use my computer
[22:09] <tomreyn> with nvidia, option d does not apply
[22:09] <tomreyn> and with nvidia, i cannot help
[22:09] <alichtman> yeah, because I don't need mesa (pretty sure)
[22:10] <alichtman> I'm leaning towards the groovy default kernel
[22:10] <tomreyn> there's a 'graphics-drivers' ppa, which might help you withnvidia
[22:10] <alichtman> I never actually tried the default kernel with my nvidia card
[22:10] <alichtman> to the best of my memory
[22:16] <alichtman> I'm going to grab some dinner but I haven't found the right version to run yet, just searching online. Is it bad to install 5.8.3?
[22:16] <alichtman> What do you recommend running?
[22:20] <tomreyn> with nvidia, you'll probably do best with the default kernel image, things will likely break on newer ones.
[22:36] <alichtman> so that would be 5.4.0.26.32
[22:42] <alichtman> Also why do you say that things will break on the newer ones?
[22:43] <alichtman> I was under the impression that newer kernels were backwards compatible. I have an RTX 2060, which isn't "bleeding edge"
[22:45] <tomreyn> nvidia drivers target specific kernel version ranges, they need to be patched by nvidia to support newer kernel versions which go through abi changes, especially when the nvidia drivers make use of internal abis (which they should not, since those aren't guaranteed to be stable).
[22:45] <alichtman> Makes sense.
[22:46] <tomreyn> unlike those of other hardware manufacturers, and even other nvidia drivers, nvidia graphics drivers are proprietary, so no one but nvidia can make them compatible to newer kernel versions.
[22:46] <alichtman> That was why I bought an AMD card, but I couldn't get it to work
[22:47] <alichtman> Might've just had a dud card, I dunno
[22:47] <tomreyn> some of the graphics cards amd released during the past years took a long time to get stable on linux, for late driver support.
[22:48] <tomreyn> in some cases over a year.
[22:48] <tomreyn> but at least they're trying
[22:48] <tomreyn> others would work fine pretty soon after the hardware hit the shops, given a current kernel
[22:49] <alichtman> I think I'm in that last category
[22:49] <alichtman> I have a 2060 which seems to be well supported
[22:49] <alichtman> especially now
[22:49] <alichtman> and I've had no real GPU issues with this card
[22:49] <alichtman> just this weird typing issue on electron apps
[22:50] <alichtman> And also VSCode
[22:50] <alichtman> yeah this has to be an electron issue
[22:51] <alichtman> So.... what do I do from here?
[22:52] <alichtman> Option 1. Restore from TimeShift backup and hope this doesn't happen again. 2. Upgrade / downgrade kernel to ______
[22:53] <alichtman> 3. Reinstall electron maybe? I already reinstalled Discord and that didn't fix the issue
[23:03] <alichtman> tomreyn: Ok, so I noticed somehting weird and think I might have fixed it. The screen reader option was enabled (and I've never enabled it). I disabled it and now I can use Discord normally. Same for VSCode and Signal
[23:04] <alichtman> I am SO confused
[23:11] <alichtman> anyways, fixed now
[23:11] <alichtman> I posted my solution on askubuntu in case anyone else runs into this problem
[23:16] <tomreyn> glad you worked it out.
[23:21] <alichtman> haha me too
[23:21] <alichtman> thanks for all the help
[23:22] <alichtman> I really appreciate it