after apt-get upgrade monitors freeze whenever I change something in 'displays'

Question

If I open Displays and change anything, from resolution, to disabling or enabling one of the monitors, my monitors freeze as soon as I click Apply

Sometimes I can still see the mouse movements. I can then go into CTRL+ ALT+F1 to do sudo service lightdm restart in order to unfreeze the monitors. Of course, the changes are not applied.

This is a freshly installed Ubuntu Desktop 14.04.1 on an ASUS k56, with an external monitor. It worked perfectly until this upgrade today.

I am using bumblebee with nvidia. They work just fine since I can run optirun glxspheres64 and play CSGO on Steam. And I could make changes to the displays w/o it freezing. The freezing started after this upgrade.

$ uname -a
Linux k56 3.13.0-46-generic #76-Ubuntu SMP Thu Feb 26 18:52:13 UTC 2015 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

I'm thinking it's one of the packages mentioned in this upgrade log: https://gist.github.com/cristianmtr/6d049e4b8c8d2c695cdf

$ lspci -nnk
00:00.0 Host bridge [0600]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor DRAM Controller [8086:0154] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
00:01.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation Xeon E3-1200 v2/3rd Gen Core processor PCI Express Root Port [8086:0151] (rev 09)
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: i915
00:04.0 Signal processing controller [1180]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core Processor Thermal Subsystem [8086:0153] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
00:14.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB xHCI Host Controller [8086:1e31] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: xhci_hcd
00:16.0 Communication controller [0780]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family MEI Controller #1 [8086:1e3a] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: mei_me
00:1a.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #2 [8086:1e2d] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:1b.0 Audio device [0403]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family High Definition Audio Controller [8086:1e20] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: snd_hda_intel
00:1c.0 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 1 [8086:1e10] (rev c4)
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.1 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 2 [8086:1e12] (rev c4)
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1c.3 PCI bridge [0604]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family PCI Express Root Port 4 [8086:1e16] (rev c4)
    Kernel driver in use: pcieport
00:1d.0 USB controller [0c03]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family USB Enhanced Host Controller #1 [8086:1e26] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: ehci-pci
00:1f.0 ISA bridge [0601]: Intel Corporation HM76 Express Chipset LPC Controller [8086:1e59] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: lpc_ich
00:1f.2 SATA controller [0106]: Intel Corporation 7 Series Chipset Family 6-port SATA Controller [AHCI mode] [8086:1e03] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: ahci
00:1f.3 SMBus [0c05]: Intel Corporation 7 Series/C210 Series Chipset Family SMBus Controller [8086:1e22] (rev 04)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
01:00.0 3D controller [0302]: NVIDIA Corporation GK107M [GeForce GT 740M] [10de:0fdf] (rev ff)
03:00.0 Network controller [0280]: Qualcomm Atheros AR9485 Wireless Network Adapter [168c:0032] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: Lite-On Communications Inc Device [11ad:6627]
    Kernel driver in use: ath9k
04:00.0 Unassigned class [ff00]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. Device [10ec:5289] (rev 01)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: rtsx_pci
04:00.2 Ethernet controller [0200]: Realtek Semiconductor Co., Ltd. RTL8111/8168/8411 PCI Express Gigabit Ethernet Controller [10ec:8168] (rev 0a)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: r8169

$ lspci -nnk | grep -iA2 VGA

**VGA**: 00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: Intel Corporation 3rd Gen Core processor Graphics Controller [8086:0166] (rev 09)
    Subsystem: ASUSTeK Computer Inc. Device [1043:1587]
    Kernel driver in use: i915

And:

$ sudo apt-get install -f install
"0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded."

I'm thinking it's this bug. Apparently there are quite a lot of people affected by it.

Answer 1

It seems that it's fixed now. I removed xorg-edgers-ppa from sources.list.d directory:

sudo rm /etc/apt/sources.list.d/xorg-edgers-ppa-trusty.list.save

or better:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:xorg-edgers/ppa

Then ran an update and upgrade:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade

Then reboot X:

sudo service lightdm restart

Now I can edit the display settings to my heart's desire! Thanks for the help.