Ubuntu 9.10 Beta Karmic

I have just installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10 beta on my EEEPC 100H and so far it’s been a great experience. Things that work better out of the box

• Synaptic touch pad
• LCD Fonts
• Remix user interface
• Network printing
• Performance
• Suspend/Resume
• Bluetooth device setup
• I also have reason to believe that the sound works better in Skype, but I’m still kicking the tyres on that

Improved Applications:

• GNOME Evolution now works well on the smaller screen
• Gwibber is much more useful for microblogging but it needs some work on reliability and performance
• Eclipse 3.5 now installs out of the box
• BOUML is now up to date

A few odd things that it would be nice to see fixed

• Evolution sometimes looses it Window border. Something to do with the Remix window manager I think
• Some things I had to try a second time before they settled down. E.g. 3G network management, bluetooth mouse setup (but that was probably finger trouble on my part), Skype sound

All in all a great release. I love it!

(20/Oct/09 — added comment about Gwibber reliability)

How I would change netbook hardware

I’ve been using my ASUS EEPC 1000H for 10 months now and there are some obvious changes that could improve the form factor which no one seems to be implementing. So here is my $200 worth

• Remove the speakers — it’s hard to get decent sound anyway. I’m mobile so I don’t want disturb others and I always use headphones. Use the space for something else
• Use a trackpoint instead of a trackpad. Takes up a lot less space and is harder to accidentally hit when typing
• Try and make the screen a little taller so that it can display 1024×768. There are just enough applications that don’t work at 1024×600 to make this important
• Improve video playback — the form factor makes a great mini-TV but sometimes… Would this be a simple matter of improving the graphics card?
• Ship with 2Gb already!
• Oh .. and don’t bother with fingerprint scanners, there are more important things.

I’m happy enough with my EEEPC that it’s my main computer (but I have a big screen and keyboard to use with it, and I don’t use tools like Eclipse)

Top Tips: Using the EEEPC 1000H

I’ve has my EEEPC 1000H for over a week now and I’m so totally enamoured of the small device that it’s become my sole platform for all my computing. Obviously this has involved some adjustments.

1. The keyboard requires considerable patience — at least for someone with my large fingers
2. My fingers are having to learn new positions to try and stop keep brushing the trackpad and moving the cursor to somewhere completely different. This is currently the most frustrating aspect of using the machine.

Some things to try.

• Get a bluetooth mouse
• Try the LXDE desktop and the Xfce4 desktop. They are both tuned for low resource use
• Consider using DevilsPie to reduce the amount of screen space used by removing the title bar and forcing all screens to be full maxiumum, partucurly of your screen is smaller than 10″
• Configure Skype to use the hda sound devices
• Carry a short USB cable for thumb drives etc. Thy can’t always fit in space you have at the side of the netbook
• Get used to using keyboard shortcuts — it mush  easier than using the trackpad
• Try using Vim and it’s plugins rather than  a large IDE
• Try using an alternative email  and PIM program to Evolution. Thunderbird for instance works better on the smaller screen and is faster
• Use multiple desktops and flip between them using <ctrl><alt><arrow> (Gnome default), for instance when referring to other material in the middle of witing an email. It’s an easier way of switching back and forth between two applications that using something like <alt><tab>
• Use the <F11> in Firefox to move into full screen mode (many other applications have a similar feature)
• Do as much as possible by typing at the terminal

Handy Hack: Installing Ubuntu 8.10 on EEE PC 1000H

The 10″ EEE PC 1000H makes a good choice for people looking for a notebook with a little more storage and bigger keyboard than Asus’ previous model. Unfortunately, whilst the local Harvey Norman had a good price, I was still forced to pay the Microsoft tax. So the third job after I got home (after upgrading the BIOS and checking the hardware worked ) was to install Ubuntu 8.10. The process was pretty straight forward because I had a current Ubuntu system to create the USB boot disk and a wired network connection so that I could install the wireless tweaks. However it took a fair mount of Googling to hopefully this should save some folks a bit of time.

1. Get a copy of the 32-bit Ubuntu 8.10 ISO image. I used the Desktop version, alternative should work fine as well
2. Use the Ubuntu System->Administration -> Create Startup USB tool to copy Ubuntu to a USB stick
3. Shutdown Windows on the EEE. I had to do this via Windows shutdown to get the correct prompts on power up
4. Power up the EEE with the ESC key pressed. You should be prompted for a boot device
5. Boot from USB
6. Install Ubuntu in the normal fashion
7. Connect to wired Internet connection
8. Get latest updates
9. Follow these instructions
10. You should now have a working EEE PC with wireless

To configure Evolution email use ALT-f at the end of each configuration screen (the buttons can’t be seen)

Try setting the panels to autohide this will give you a little more screen room

The EEE PC trackpad buttons are pushed from the front by the way, not the top.

EEE PC starts to look intresting as well

DailyTech – ASUS Shows Off 8.9″ Eee PC 900

ASUS Shows Off 8.9″ Eee PC 900

I considered the EEE PC some time ago and decided that it was not really for me because of storage and screen limitations. However the new 900 has a 1024×600 display and 12Gb flash drive. With USB ports for mouse & keyboard and a monitor port plus storage expansion via SD and USB could this become a serious machine?