Ubuntu: Crash and Burn

Ubuntu gave me a birthday present. Yes, on my 73rd birthday, Ubuntu offered up a complete meltdown of my laptop's functionality: no mouse, no trackpad, no keyboard. So much for the 20.04 stable release! I couldn't be bothered trouble-shooting and simply reinstalled the operating system. Everything works fine again now, although I have to reinstall Astrolog and Calibre for starters.

It's not the first time this has happened. I made a post titled Mouse, Trackpad and Keyboard Freeze in Ubuntu on 15th March 2022. I'd forgotten that I'd solved the problem back then by holding down the option key while rebooting. At that time, I blamed the problem on keyboard remapping software Kinto that I hadn't properly uninstalled. In hindsight, that may not have been the cause at all. I fully removed what I thought was the offending software with a program called Stacer. 

I've tried to reinstall this Stacer and apparently succeeded but it doesn't launch. I installed it before using Flatpak but doesn't install either. So frustrations get heaped on top of frustrations. I don't have the patience to deal with these problems anymore. I just want an operating system that works and that's what I had by and large with Mac OS. 

This "crash and burn" of Ubuntu is disappointing and reminds that I need to store any important files online for easy retrieval later. My Astrolog charts are gone but I had already set up the Airtable database containing the original data, so the charts can be recreated. Likewise I may have lost a few books from my Calibre library. I'm not sure what their titles were but, if I remember them, they can be added again. The incident has motivated me to get organised.

I thought that I may as well install the latest version of Ubuntu now that I'm up and running again. My reason for sticking with the long term stable release was ... its stability! So I set about downloading the latest release, version 21.04 released in April of 2021. Not so fast.

Of course, there's no network problem but hey, who cares? I considered reinstalling Mac OS just to sidestep all this nonsense and actually set about doing it, following instructions at this site:

I got to the point where installation of Big Sur was about to start but a connection with the Apple server couldn't be established and so the installation was aborted. It's recommended that an Ethernet connection be used for downloading and so I should try this before giving up altogether ... but not tonight. I don't want to spend the remainder of my birthday dealing with technological issues.

Before closing, I must point out that my latest annoyance is the brightness of the screen now varying. This is a minor problem but nonetheless annoying. The operating system may be the cause or it may simply be  the result of old age. My poor old battery registers 46% when fully charged. No matter. Life goes on.