Ubuntu more annoying than Windows?

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

A couple of weeks ago, having bought a new PC (but no Windows yet), I tried to give a try to Ubuntu installation (after some 10 years of not messing up with Linux). The first results were encouraging, but since a few days I discovered that Ubuntu has "borrowed" from Windows a very annoying feature: system updates.

This eventually turned a fully operational system into an unusable wreck. I used that PC mostly for communication = mail and forums. But since 2 days (and very likely due to a system update) I am unable to post in any forums, and to send mail (except for the simplest test mails, which the sustem probably detects as useless so these are actually sent).

I don't expect a replay about how to fix this problem, I realize thare may be ~569 causes for these features to fail, but I am looking for a starting point, for instance a place where someone having the same problems may have complained and hopefully got a solution.Any ideas?

Thanks

Andrei

[EHM-1997 Alexander]

I tend to use Ubuntu from the command line these days, but my dad is a big Ubuntu desktop user so I may ask him.

What version of ubuntu are you using? Auromatic updates should not be enabled by default and have to be turned on: http://www.liberiangeek.net/2012/01/turn-on-automatic-update-in-ubuntu-11-10-oneiric-ocelot/

Normal updating should not break stuff though. Maybe something went wrong?

Try opening a terminal and updating

Aptitude update
Aptitude safe-upgrade

And see what the results are.

That said I don't fully understand what is actually broken - networking? DNS? You appear to have some Internet connectivity?

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

Thanks for your reply Alexander.

Fortunately my cousin and (by pure chance) co-worker was more network-savvy than I am, and he pointed me to the MTU problematic (which I now scientifically understand as "little and unknown thingy that's able to cause big mess").

I am still struggling a bit trying to make the MTU setting permanent, for some reason the general procedure recommended on the Internet doesn't apply to my PC but the worst has been avoided by now.

Andrei

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

I am still struggling a bit trying to make the MTU setting permanent, for some reason the general procedure recommended on the Internet doesn't apply to my PC

Fixed that too (and this is the post to prove it )

Andrei

[EHM-2097 Andrei]

For those interested, there was an episode #2 to this story.

At some point after starting to use the PC with dual boot (Windows + Ubuntu), networking under Ubuntu began to periodically fail (some 30sec up, then 5 mins down).  Interestingly enough, networking using same hardware under Windows worked without a glitch!

I have been unable to use e-mail for almost a month, until today I could finally fix this - by reinstalling a new driver for the LAN adapter. It remains a huge mystery how did dual boot-ing or Windows trigger this problem in the first place (although this was confirmed by several similar scenarios reported on the web).

Andrei

[EHM-1465 Dominic]

Oh dear Andrei - that sounds like a real pain!! Well beyond my level of expertise so I can't even offer an educated opinion on this one