Date: Fri, 24 Jun 2016 22:15:03 +0000 From: Manish Jain <bourne.identity@hotmail.com> To: "galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu" <galtsev@kicp.uchicago.edu> Cc: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Re: Bad experience switching to SSD on FreeBSD 10.3 Message-ID: <VI1PR02MB0974251C6115EAE27D495388F62E0@VI1PR02MB0974.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com> In-Reply-To: <49382.128.135.52.6.1466802877.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu> References: <VI1PR02MB0974EE59E723F9B6678BDAC1F62E0@VI1PR02MB0974.eurprd02.prod.outlook.com> <49382.128.135.52.6.1466802877.squirrel@cosmo.uchicago.edu>
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On 6/25/2016 2:44 AM, Valeri Galtsev wrote: > On Fri, June 24, 2016 3:24 pm, Manish Jain wrote: >> Hi, >> >> I have a rather bad experience switching to SSD on FreeBSD 10.3 amd64. > Things would have been much worse had the SSD switch not worked for my > other OS - Windows XP, a bit surprising because XP does not support SSD > TRIM. >> >> For my upgrade, there were 3 components which I upgraded simultaneously > : >> >> 1) Keyboard -> LED backlit keyboard (Cooler Master Devastator, USB) 2) 2 > GB DDR3 RAM -> 8GB DDR3 (G Skill) >> 3) Sata HD -> SSD (Samsung EVO 500 GB) >> >> The keyboard upgrade itself failed for FreeBSD. The moment I switch on > the >> LED backlight light for the keys, console output freezes till I turn off > the backlight. This is surprising because the keyboard works well on XP, > which was developed almost 2 decades back. The reason this is important > for me is because I love working in the dark, with no bright lights > around. LED keyboards make that possible. Not just that, the keyboard > looks sensational - particularly with LED on, when the thing looks > futuristic. > > It's useful that you share that, but it doesn't resemble the subject... I > know, sometimes it is really hard to make subject say what you will > describe. > >> >> So I resigned myself to working without the LED. Upon installation of > FreeBSD and Gnome3, the desktop started crashing. I suspected the RAM to > be defective and reinstalled the whole OS with the RAM switched to the > original 2 GB - which was working flawlessly on previous FreeBSD 10.2 > installation. Upon reinstall, things were much better, but then Gnome > Tweak Tool just does not work. This makes it impossible to get the > Applications menu and the Window list, which I find absolutely > essential. >> There is no way I can work the Activities system that Gnome ships with > as >> default. Hotspot makes things much worse, although I think there is an > extension that disable hotspot. But first I have to get the Activities > menu and the Window List, without which I just can't use Gnome. If I > can't >> get Gnome to work for me, FreeBSD itself becomes useless as a desktop > OS. > > I suspect some hardware problems, maybe not fully compatible or flaky new > RAM. Your SSD sounds really good, I exclude that just based on its > reputation. I myself just switched to similar Samsung (only 1 TB) my > laptop (FreeBSD 10.3; Fujitsu Ultrabook U904). All happily works and rock > solid for me. I do not use Gnome, I use Mate instead. My laptop keyboard > backlite turns ON and OFF without problem (I can see somebody already > figured out what happens in your case). I didn't test/tweak many thing ye= t > (and usually I only tweak a few)... Question: did you have the same > everything (hardware wise and settings/tweaks wise) before you switched t= o > SSD? As I for one can not see any reason to blame switching to SSD for > this bucket of problems. > >> >> So I crapped the FreeBSD installation and switched to Windows XP + > Cygwin. >> On XP, the whole thing works fantastically. My system is much faster, > roughly 3 times compared to when I had the SATA HD. Now I am stuck with > Windows XP, when the entire upgrade had targeted removal of XP and > FreeBSD >> as the only OS. > > Windows XP is not supported for quite long, and after the end of support > there were several security problems discovered, which your unsupported X= P > is vulnerable to. I would recommend to relly quit on Windows XP. I have t= o > use windows occasionally (I run it under VirtualBox on FreeBSD > machines: laptop and workstation), nothing lower than Windows 7 can be > safely run. > > Good luck making FreeBSD work for you! Even if it takes some effort it's > well worth it. > > Valeri > >> The LED keyboard situation is unwarranted - FreeBSD should >> by now be having support for USB LED keyboard. The Gnome situation is an > equal concern. FreeBSD is famous for making sensible choices. The Gnome > developers have screwed up the desktop environment with rotten user > interface choices, and the thing now needs to be fixed with extensions > and >> tweak tools. This leads directly to inavailability of FreeBSD for me for > the time being. I was prepared to go without the keyboard - I could have > tried passing the USB commands to Widows XP hosted under VirtualBox. > That >> might have been possible, although I am not sure it would have worked. > But >> the additional Gnome problem leads me to >> revert >> to XP as the only OS for the time being. Hopefully things will be fixe= d >> with FreeBSD 11.0. Luckily for me, I used MBR partitioning when >> initializing the SSD - against the advice from this forum. Because of > that, I was able to try out XP, rather than having to roll back the > whole >> upgrade. >> >> I hope developers at FreeBSD and Gnome become aware of my experience - I > dearly wish things will be fixed ASAP. >> >> Thank you. >> Manish Jain Sorry, the title of the my message was misleading. The problem was not=20 SSD : rather it was LED keyboard and Gnome Tweak Tool. Regards Manish Jain
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