Netbooks

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbooks

I thought I might start a thread on this subject, and maybe even make it sticky.

I'll leave this first post a little bare, so that I can throw in some links, etc, from time to time, maybe?

I know there are a few of use with these dinky machines. I'm sure there will be some problems/questions/tips we can discuss.

Acer Aspire One - A110L (but see below)

Initial spec: 512GiB RAM, 8GiB SSD, Linpus.

I've been having some interesting adventures, on this, my latest "toy".

I bought it for £175 in Tescos (supermarket chain) just before Christmas. I wanted it primarily as a totally portable system - and one that is utterly silent. I didn't want an HDD. I certainly didn't want XP!

I dumped the Linpus OS (which I broke, by just updating it, within a day) and installed Intrepid. With extras, it took less than 4GiB. I added an extra 8GiB SD card, to take some of the strain off the 8GiB SSD it came with, plus I've just upgraded it from the plain, soldered-in-to-motherboard 512MiB, to 1.5GiB. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EfzckyZMTk

I don't recommend the memory upgrade, unless you are very confident. I broke the keyboard connector, but managed to fix it adequately... eventually.

I was somewhat surprised that the whole of Compiz-Fusion graphics capability works. Spinning cubes, raindrops and so on. I've also had it driving an external monitor quite happily.

Video calls via Skype work flawlessly, except that the built in speakers are far too puny, even when there is virtually no ambient nois. I keep forgetting to buy some earphones.

I did need to slot in a couple of scripts, to get the fan to turn off.

I really should drop back from ext3 to ext2, to improve the life of the SSD. I haven't got around to that yet. (I'm lazy.)

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Anyway, things that have failed:

Some bits of the hardware are not supported under Ubuntu... yet. (E.g. the Ethernet is unhappy, the LEDs for WiFi toggle aren't functioning, and the second multi-card slot doesn't seem to work... but I'm sure that's just a matter of time, before I figure out what to do with it.)

Some windows in Ubuntu have a nasty habit of refusing to be fully visible, on a screen a mere 600 pixels high. Another case of waiting for a tweeak to sort it out. It hasn't proved an insurmountable problem... yet.

SecondLife was unhappy, but I think that's purely because it refuses to run on a mere 1024x600 screen. (Actually, I removed it, but I could reinstall it, to see if the extra RAM helps... but probably not.)

VirtualBox was fine, but there's no way I'll bother to run much uner it. I just wish to toy with some of the lean'n'mean OSes.

I was of half a mind to try out Windows 7 under VB, just to see if I could fool it into working, but I'll need to get a much bigger SD card to handle that rubbish.

So far, I've tried to get a VB Puppy to run, but I think I need to be a little cleverer with it. When it starts up, it grabs one of the two CPU cores, and sends it to 100% usage. Restarting, it seems to alternate between which core it snaffles. I suspect I am running into a bug somewhere.

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NB. Has anyone else with an Acer Aspire One noticed whether their N270 is single or dual core? I have the impression that I may have acquired a "prototype" machine, with dual core. None of the documentation says it is dual core, but Ubuntu happily shows both CPUs running.

I have an Acer Aspire ONE net-book computer
with a 120 Gig HDD 106 Gig as drive C:\
Windows XP is stored in a hidden partition.
I have 1024 MB of ram.
Processor x86 Family 6 Model 28 Stepping 2 GenuineIntel ~1595 Mhz (Intel Atom)
I have been playing around with the idea of installing Kubuntu,
Puppy Linux, Damn Small Linux or some other minimal Linux
onto a 16 GB memory stick.

============================================

Skype is a bit buggy on this machine, audio calling works fine but
text chatting is a bit of a problem, Windows scroll bars and dialog boxes do not work
properly.

Heh, lau, we seem to have the same netbook model! Janek, my netbook, runs fine except for the wifi lights and the internal microphone. I run her with Xubuntu however and have no Compiz Fusion because that makes me cringe.

I'm sure someone will come up with a minor patch to get the LEDs to work. It's pretty trivial stuff.

Interesting... my internal mic is fine. Have you tried reverting to Linpus, just to see if the mic is damaged?

I assume you have the scripts installed that stop the fan being permanently on? Details are at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne110L

Note that there have been BIOS updates. The latest seems to be 3309, but as none of the change log seems relevant, unless you run XP, I've not bothered to flash it yet. My BIOS is somewhat older - 3109.

There's just one main thing in Compiz... I can't give up the advanced zoom. (Plus I do like showing off the cube, to people with lesser desktops.)

And... does your Acer show two CPUs too? I'm really rather bemused by the fact that I seem to have them.

Lately my Acer One has been acting kind of flakey...Dialog boxes popping up whenever I am typing text.
At first I thought it was something wrong in Firefox so I restarted the browser a couple of times but that
didn't fix the problem, then I tried typing in note pad and I kept getting the same glitch, so I did a system restore thinking I might have picked up some malware...still the same problem. The only thing I could think of was the fact that I am running the machine 24/7 and it feels kind of hot. I shut it down completely
to let it cool off for a while.....Hopefully that is all that is wrong with it.

The scripts for Ubuntu to control the fan specify turning the fan on when the temperature reaches 70°C and turning it back off when it drops to 60°C. They say that Intel reckons the Atom will work at 99°C.

My fan does turn on, but only when I have the Acer sitting on a duvet, so the back of the case isn't dissipating any heat. It doesn't seem to turn on at all in other situations - including sat on my lap, warming my right leg and cooking my left.

Maybe you should take yours off the hotplate? or is it out of the oven? Is it out the frying pan? into the fire?

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PS. Of course, you are running XP, so it's probably just a virus.

I've got a asus 701 eee netbook and it was preinstalled with linux so everything works.

I installed puppy linux onto a sd card and booted it off that, but mainly use the orginally operating system. Just use it for taking notes really.

Once a get around to it I'm going to install unbuntueee I think it is called, it has been made specially for the asus eee.

One thing about owning a asus eee is you have to watch out for envuous mexicans.

I also have an EEE pc, minne is 900HA I believe. I'm currently running windows XP but I'm thinking of downloading Ubuntu. I have a problem though. When I put my laptop into standby it turns back on by itself in a minute or so. Any solutions for this/probable cause?

But more cringeworthy than actually good!

Well, the exactly same page you linked me speaks about the issue.

Of course!

I won't fix anything that is not broken if this is the only working machine

Question of taste. My desktop makes people either laugh or remark that the early 90s are over, but I need to use it, no one else.

Yeah, I guess it has 2 cores, which both show up.

I can only speak for the Acer, but it might apply to the Asus as well.

I'm running on a rather out-of-date BIOS (3109 versus 3309). However, when I looked at the change log, all the significant changes seemed to be correcting problems on XP. As I'm running Ubuntu, I haven't bothered to do the update.

The Asus uses the similar hardware, so I wonder if they also have a bunch of BIOS updates for XP?

Just a thought...

True. I suspect I'll be a guinea pig. I'll grab another (rather tiny) stick to put FreeDOS on, so I can do the update. I also want to have a shot at taking my ext3 back to ext2. Maybe tomorrow, if I can dig my car out of the snow (I just failed at that, an hour ago).

Turning it off overnight cleared up the problem...
As for virus I have Avast running, if any virus got past that it would also be on my other computers too.