Acer Aspire One D150 + Windows 7 Ultimate: 6 months on ...

I've spent the last year or so hopping from one operating system to another in a quest to find what works best (for me) on netbooks in general and specifically on the Acer Aspire One(AAO) D150 that I bought in May 2009. That journey took me from the default (as it was then) Windows XP build, through a number of Linux Distributions, to Windows 7 RC, and now to Windows 7 Ultimate.

The thing that is most telling is that I haven't changed my installed operating system in 6 months.

Right from the first boot (half the time taken to book Windows XP) it was obvious that Windows 7 was a different prospect to it's predecessors. It is well thought out, robust, friendly, not a resource drain (despite a number of posts and articles recently trying to imply the opposite). Simple things like the integrated device driver database now mean you can plug in any common USB device - that printer in clients office that you have never used before - and be able to use it straight away, no drivers to download, no reboot required.

Windows 7 has worked so well that I am comfortably sat in my office writing this post with my AAO plugged into an external mouse, keyboard and monitor and having a very comfortable and productive experience. These peripherals aren't essentials either - my AAO has been a more-or-less constant companion since I bought it and I would estimate it gets 12+ hours use just about every day.

Don't think that I only use it to surf and handle my email: I'm launching my new communications agency on the 18th March (PH Digital Communications - take a look at http://www.ph-digital.co.uk) and the brand design, 3D animation, Flash and website programming including some AR (augmented reality work) were all done on my netbook. My installed software ranges from the expected (Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, Sky Player, MS Office) through to the more exotic (Flash 8, Flash CS4, Adobe Creative Suite CS2, Dreamweaver, Blender, Second Life amongst others).

I've made only one hardware change to the netbook - I've swapped it's 1GB standard RAM module for the maximum 2GB, but that's it.

Will I need a more powerful computer? Yes - I'll undoubtedly need a more powerful desktop for animation rendering and larger scale 3D work, and I have an old desktop configured as a server, backup and printer host. Will I trade my netbook up for a laptop? Not in the near future. My AAO has served me flawlessly through buiness presentations and anything I have needed to do whilst out on business and it's 6 hour battery life has been a great help. All from a computer that a grand total of about £300. The extreme portability coupled with enough power and the broad features and stability makes this a winning solution for my needs.

Installing Windows 7 RC on an Acer Aspire One D150.....

Ok. I'm more than a little invested in Linux - I think it's an amazing alternative to MS Windows and has recently upped it's game to deliver something that is as easy to use and install as Windows XP (and takes considerably less time fixing once it has been installed).

Fedora 11 is due out in a few days and it's my plan to review it soon after it is release, so I thought I'd take the next rew days to check out how well an old favourite, OpenSuse 11.1 worked on my nice new Acer Aspire One D150. Well, long story short, not that well ... install was easy enough, but no WLan after the install, so plugged in a cable an opted to install all the updates that were listed as pending. This didn't fix the WLan and nuked the X config - meaning I couldn't boot the machine and was faced with having to pick it apart and fix it. I have this Windows 7 RC disk hanging around so I thought I'd give it a go...

The install is as easy as you could hope for ... answer the questions and wait. All over and done with in about 30-40 minutes and it was good to see everything working from first boot ... all the aero effects work, WLan, Lan, Audio, Webcam ... even the pesky light on the front that shows WLan connection status. Very good.

So I start by installing the obvious applications (Firefox 3, Thunderbird 2, Open Office 3 + JRE, Skype and AVG Free) which all goes smoothly and performance is good. This is an (as yet) un modified netbook so it only has 1GB of RAM, but I haven't really seen it swapping to disk yet.

Boot times are OK ... not Linux fast but at about 1 minute 30 seconds to get to a working desktop are tolerable, and about 25 seconds to shut down is a good time.

I decided to take things a little further and tried Blender - works fine - and Second Life which promptly refused to believe that there was ebough 3D support to run. I find this a little odd, as the netbook has plenty of power to be able to run this. A little web research finds me this video review including the AAOD150 running Second Life. This led me to think that it's a Windows version compatibility problem and switching to running the application in XP compatibility mode as the administrator would solve the problem. For some reason that's not the case. I neede to download the original intel driver and install that (downgrading the one that came with Win 7 RC (build 7100). But that coupled with running as admin in compatibility mode *did* work.

I have a three.co.uk 3G USB dongle that works very well on a Windows Vista laptop that I use but this refused to work under Windows 7. This is down to how this particular device works. Rather than ship a separate disk of drivers, the USB device is dual mode and presents both the modem device and a data partition from which the drivers can be installed. It seems that he problem with Windows 7 is in switching modes - from data to modem - and the device consistently presents as a data device even after the drivers are installed. I'm working on an answer for this and will let you know when I find it ...

So far, I'm very happy with Windows 7. Easy, reasonably fast, works ... just need to change that screen resoultion thing and get my 3G modem working and I'll be happy!

The death of linux on netbooks may have been somewhat exagerated.....

Having seen a lot of press about the 'death of linux on netbooks'. I've started doing some stats gathering myself, from everyone I know who's using netbooks plus some random polls on twitter. I appreciate that these results aren't totally solid, but I expect they offer a better idea of opinion than some of the sales based stats being chucked around at the moment.

Of 27 people polled, 6 of them run Windows XP on their netbooks. Of the remaining 21, one person is running Windows 7 and the rest are a mix of Linux distributions. That gives an approximate Linux adoption rate of 74%.

The statistics that are being used to suggest that Windows has regained the netbook market are all about sales - and a quick study of any of the online stores selling netbooks will show you why: the new generation of netbooks are mostly being sold with Windows. High return rates for Linux based machines have been quoted as a reason for this change, but I would suspect manufacturers only needing to make and suppliers only needing to stock a single version of each model (rather than a Linux and a Windows version) may also have been a factor.

What is significant, in my opinion is that these stats only describe the units as they are sold. I'm looking to buy a new netbook at the moment. The first thing I'll be doing is installing Ubuntu 9.04 on it, regardless of which OS it ships with. The current stats that are being used to indicate user preference fail to capture this and I would be interested to see the figures for the that are reinstalled to a Non-windows OS by their owners .....

Window 7 RC public release - a bit of a dilemma

Now I have a dilemma. Microsoft have done the obvious and are working to build as much interest around Windows 7 as possible. Putting the RC out to the public is an obvious way of doing this and retaining control over it's distrubution (rather than the host of torrents for the betas that we have seen).

This does however leave me having to make a decision:do I test Windows 7, just to see, when I have to confess I am absolutly happy with Ubuntu 9.04.

That statement would benefit from a little qualification. I've been running Ubunt 9.04 from the day that it was released (some 3 weeks ago) and it has been a very welcome relief from the near-misses of many other distributions. Ubuntu has raised the game for Linux significantly with this, to the point where I would prefer to use that rather than any of the MS Windows based machines I also use. The *only* thing I haven't tried yet is my 3G USB modem. I suspect that that will just be a case of installing the drivers, but I'll confirm that later.

So I feel that I should give Windows 7 a go, just to see what it's like and how it deals with the challenges presented by the hardware constraints of netbooks, but I have to say, I just don't feel the need ...

Installing Ubuntu 9.04 on an EeePC 900

I've been running Windows XP on my EeePC 900 for a couple of weeks and whilst the ease-of-use has been nice it has been (predictably) getting slower and fatter.

What I've been waiting for is a suitable replacement and yesterdays release of Ubuntu 9.04 provoked an immediate download and install.

I was hoping for something that could actually compete with / surpass Windows XP. I got what I hoped for.

I chose the standard desktop build for my install - I liked the previous NBR, but in the end I wanted it to be more like an ordinary desktop. I did this by downloading the ISO and burning toa CD-R and using a USB DVD-RW drive that I have.

The install itself is a very easy process apart from one stage - the disk partitioning. But more on that later, and remeber I'm describing this from a non-linux experts perspective tempered with the expereince of 10-15 differnet distributions on the EeePC 900.

The install starts ask you all familiar questions about location and keyboard layout wich I have to say it makes very easy. The installer also identifies the resoultion of the EeePC display by default and all the buttons and controlls are correctly positioned for the sice and aspect ratio of the screen.

The next questions are about where to install Ubuntu to. The EeePC 900 boasts 20GB of solid state disk storage, but this is infact split into a 4GB onboard drive and a 16GB secondary drive. The problem that I consistently encounter, even with installers that are supposedly designed for netbooks, is that they don't suggest a split installation where both disks are utilised. This meant that I ended up doing my own partitioning. I have to say that some installers make that proposition a very tricky process, but the Ubuntu 9.04 installer was easy to use and quickly enabled me to set up the following:

• 4GB SSD: single partition mounted as '/'
• 16GB SSD: 2GB swap partition, 4GB partition mounted as '/usr' and 10GB partition mounted as '/home'

From that point onwards things where very easy - provide my user details and off it went. The install took about 30 minutes and completed without event.

Then the reboot. I know that Ubuntu have been saying that they have improved boot times, but I was very impressed at how fast the OS booted. Not more than 30 seconds.

The interface iteself looks great, but what made me oven happier was to find that it had already identified the hardware so that audio, wlan, lan, function keys and even little things like two-finger scrolling with the trackpad all worked without my needing to do anything.

The experience of using Ubuntu 9.04 I will leave to another bloog post but I must just say that I was pleasantly surprised at just how slick and sorted is it, and how everything just worked in a way that I am not used to encountering with Linux. It may seem trivial, but when I started Firefox up and went to page containing an embedded Flash element, I got the usual popup asking if I wanted to install the plugin. This usually never works. I usually have to download it from Adobe and install it by hand. But I tried it anyway and one dialogue later the plugin has downloaded and installed perfectly.

So if I had to describe my Ubuntu 9.04 experience so far it's this: very slick, but more importantly it all just works.

Netbook + Windows XP = Still the most usable combination?

I hate to be writing this. As you may have spotted from the rest of my blog, I love Linux and I own an EeePC 900. OK. I've tried a number of distributions and I have come to a conclusion that I don't actually like: Install Windows XP. Because in the end, it is just easier, and you'll be more productive because more of the software that you want to use will work.

It is a sad state of affairs really. We all know that Windows XP isn't all that - let's face it, we're talkign about an OS that has some fundamental flaws. But what it offers, and what I really hope that the Linux community will soon provide is true ease of use.

For example, I have a 3G usb modem that I can use while travelling. The device has a memory stick built in that contains the drivers - for both Windows and Linux. The Windows drivers install first time and work, the Linux drivers won't install properly and don't provide any feedback on why.

I don't actually want to use Windows XP - it feels like a step backwards. It just happens to work better. I'm hoping that JoliCloud will provide a real alternative ... then theres Windows 7 ...

Fedora Linux 10 - First impressions

On Friday (3 days ago) I installed Fedora 10 Linux onto my EeePC 900.

The install was very easy (done from the Live CD, via USB DVD-ROM drive) and seems to support all the EeePC hardware out to the box (function keys, wlan, audio, trackpad). I don't know about the in-built camera yet as I haven't tested it.

The first things I noticed (after the slightly longer boot time than I'm used to (75 seconds to get to login prompt, +25 seconds to get logged in) was that the Fedora default disk build has done something very clever with it's disk partitioning system and has built a single 18.9GB volume out of my 4GB + 16GB solid state disks. This is the first time I have seen something like this (although I heard about it a couple of months ago). The cool thing is, it just works.

So far, Fedora is well behaved and works responsively, is s little slow to boot. As I get software installed on it I'll post further experiences. I'm aiming for the standard Open Office, Inkscape, Gimp (which was already included), Blender, Skype in addition to Firefox 3, Thunderbird and Remote Desktop. I'll also be seeing of I can find a way to get the '3' network 3G dongle that I have working on Fedora.

Looks good so far, I'll let you know about the rest ....

EeeBuntu NBR Mini-Review

I've been running EeeBuntu NBR (Netbook remix) for just over a week now and I'm struck by two things - first, how easy it is to use, and how well the innovative netbook interface works, and second, how much of a near-miss experience this has been for me.

I'm judging how well this works against other Linux distributions I have installed onto the same EeePC - OpenSuse and Mandriva being to key ones, as well as the user experience from using an operating system (OS) like MS Windows XP.

The install itself is as easy as can be - you answer a few questions about where and who you are, accept the suggested disk partitioning scheme (remember to backup any files before you do this - your disk will get formatted as part of the process) and everything goes ahead as planned.

The OS installs with no drama at all.

Once you have completed the install and logged in there is a configuration tool in the system menu that applies updates and fixes to ensure that all the right setup is done and that your EeePC works correctly. It takes only a minute or so and is completely automated.

The first problem I noted was when I tried to use my 4GB SD card in the EeePCs inbuilt reader - which didn't work. It seems that (on this install, on this hardware - a stock ASUS EeePC 900) that the OS is not configured to mount new devices automatically. Now, for those of us that are familiar with Linux, it's not too much of a problem to sort that out, but that is also not entirely the point.

The EeeBuntu NBR is designed specifically for people with netbooks who want a better OS, with a better user experience. The problem is, from what I've seen I'm not convinced that this would work without the user needing to sort a few things out by hand. If we think about MS Windows - you just plug in the device and it works. With the EeeBuntu NBR, that's not the case, and I don't think the target audience for that OS would necessarily know what to do to fix it or where to look to find out how.

Day-to-day the OS is responsive and works quickly. Boot times including login of about 60 seconds with applications starting fast and running well.

The other thing that struck me is that the pre-configured repositories (the online libraries of software available for installation) are rather limited - for example GIMP which is one of the most famous of open source graphics packages and is usually available along with Open Office and some other key applications, isn't - was rather surprised that it wasn't in the standard build.

Despite these few (minor) points, I'm struck by how good an OS this is and how well it works.

Installing Microsoft Windows Vista on EeePC 900

Over the past 10 months that I've had my EeePC 900, I've tried a large range of OSs on it, OpenSuse, Mandriva, Ubuntu, PClinuxOS, DreamLinux, Puppy, EasyPeasy and MS Windows XP.

I found a couple of youtube clips of people running Vista on EeePC so thought I'd try it out.

A note on disk space - this is only going to work on EeePCs that have a 16GB second partition, as Vista needs lots of disk space during the install and you'll end up with 6-7GB disk space used up by the OS.

What you need to get started is a Vista disk (I used Vista Business retail) and USB DVD ROM drive. You should also go to the ASUS website and download the Windows XP drivers for the ACPI harware, chipset drivers, graphics card LAN and WLAN drivers - you'll need these later to put them onto a USB stick and unzip them.

Before you get started, you'll need to back up all your data - the 16GB partition is going to get formatted as part of the installation.

Connect the USB drive to your EeePC, put the vista disk in and reboot.

The installer will start up and at this poin you may notice that things seem to take a while - the solid state disk in your EeePC is not as fast as a normal hard disk so the install is goinf to take a while - when I did this I think the whole process took about two and a half hour.

When you are asked to choose where to install to, you'll only be able to select the 16GB SD partition. This is the only disk big enough to hold the Vista OS installation.

The rest of the install is as easy as you'd expect. Please note that is is going to seem like it has just stopped at a number of pointe with the progress indicator showing 0% and no drive lights flashing - stick with it, your EeePC is still working and the install will continue.

Once installed you'll find most of the hardware works. Apart from the WLAN card, which is annoying but can be fixed. If you go to the Vista Device manager you'll see two unidentified ethernet devices. One is the LAN card, the other the WLAN card. You'll have to use trial-and error to identify which is which (if you install the WLAN driver on the LAN card, you'll get an error saying that Vista couldn't start the driver at which point you can unistall the driver and try again). The WLAN driver you need can be found in the NDIS5x folder that is inside the WLAN installer you downloaded from ASUS. Install that driver directly and you should find everything works find. Don't run the setup for the installer - it installs a WLAN connection manager that is intended for use with XP and doesn't work with Vista.

You can use the same method to install drivers for the LAN and ACPI hardware. I also ran the setup for the graphics card drivers - it gives you the neat little intel applet that allows you to choose a few extra screen resolutions, but it's not essential.

So there you are - Vista installed. The big question is: how does it run ... and the answer is OK. Not brilliantly fast (I timed 40 seconds to login, 65 seconds to desktop loaded startmenu accessible and able to launch an application) and prone to a lot of disk swapping - a RAM upgrade would probably help with this. From my personal perspective it was just a little too slow, so I've gone back to a Linux distro - (EeeBuntu NBR to be exact).

I would suggest that installing on a EeePC 901 - with the Atom processor and faster SSD - would probably make for a good, workable OS. I have access to one and will do a follow up review when I've tested it.

Mandriva 2009 1 and OpenSuse 11.1 Linux on EeePC 900

Posts reblogged from http://paleheretic.blogspot.com


Mandriva Linux on EeePC 900

Mandriva Linux and my Asus EeePC 900 - A follow-up review

OpenSuse 11.1 on EeePC 900 - How-to and mini-review

MS Windows XP and Vista on EeePC 900

Some useful posts reblogged from http://paleheretic.blogspot.com

Windows Vista on EeePC - Done and working ... mostly.

EeePC + Window XP SP3 .... Going back to MS