Another update window popped up in Ubuntu 13.10 a couple of days ago. Lots of packages to be updated (281 if memory serves) so as I wasn’t doing anything that required my laptop, I started the upgrade. After a while it finished and asked to restart. Nothing unusual so far. The restart went OK and the login screen popped up – but where was the mouse pointer? Hmm, that’s odd.

Another restart showed the mouse pointer was present right up to the login screen – when it vanished.

Logging in showed that the mouse was there, but the pointer wasn’t. Moving the mouse around and clicking showed it worked, but there was no pointer. A search of the web threw up a few options, but none have worked. Annoying!

This is the third or fourth time in the last 6 months that an Ubuntu upgrade has created some issue with this laptop. Every time (until now) the fix has been easy enough but has meant spending time hunting around on the web that could have been spent doing productive things. A few years ago this wasn’t an issue I had. The occasional distribution upgrade caused trouble, but generally things just worked. Upgrades and updates were seamless and could be approached without fear. Sadly this appears to no longer be the case which bring to the fore again a question I’ve asked before – is it time for a change?

Of the OS’s I’ve had regular contact with over the last 3 years I find it amazing that the system that has required the least amount of effort is Windows 7! While it has thrown a few issues my way, they’ve all been easy enough to fix. OSX has proved the most frustrating and has caused the most hair pulling incidents, but this may well reflect my lack of experience with it (though things haven’t gotten any easier the more time I have spent). Windows 8 seems like a huge change and may be a step too far, but at least I know it works well on this laptop.

As I’ve been toying with the idea of a new laptop the choice of OS will be a huge factor, so does anyone have any advice or recommendations for me? I need a light laptop as I travel a lot but beyond that I’m open to suggestions…

Update

After much work in the terminal I have managed to get back to a desktop with a pointer.