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!
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Review. Show all posts
Friday, 5 June 2009
Friday, 29 May 2009
Acer Aspire One D150 - Mini-review and Ubuntu 9.04 install
I've had an AAO D150 for 5 days now and I have to say that I'm entirely happy with it - my only complaint is that I wish I'd had more time to spend on it!
The unit itself comes put of the box with the usual manuals but does expect you to burn the reinsallation and drivers disks yourself. I've always though that this is a rather mean policy when you're selling a device that doesn't include an optical drive, but maybe that's just me.
The Aspire One is also not available as a Linux option - it's only available as Windows XP. If you're read my other blog posts, you'll already know that I'm not a fan and it won't suprise you to know that Windows XP didn't last 24 hours before I wiped it and installed Ubuntu 9.04 - my current favourite operating system.
OK. Other things worth knowing about the unit: the D150 comes with a 6 cell Li Ion battery that gives up to 6 hour use, the keyboard has a full right-hand shift key and (unlike my old EeePC 900) has proper page-up and page-down keys rather than function key combinations. The screen is nice and clear and bright, and the unit has all the expected ports 3xUSB, audio in/out and SD card. One nice touch is that the bios supports an additional function (you press F12 at boot up) that allows you to choose the boot device. Makes installing from CD or booting from a USB very easy...
... about as easy as installing Ubuntu 9.04. It really was as simple as: download the ISO, burn a disk (I have a USB DVD RAM drive), boot the disk, choose install, provide user info and select the simple options for everything else. Long story short - it just worked. Audio, USB, SD Cards, Wifi, Lan all seem to be working. The Wifi light on the front doesn't, but my experiences with an A110 lead me to believe that installing the backports will fix that - I'll post the results. The only untested things are the Mic and the WebCam.
As far as applications go, I'm running Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, OpenOffice 3, Gimp, Inkscape and Blender as linux native. Blender is the only one that has issues and it looks like patchy 3D drivers, but I'll let you know when I find out more. In addition, I have installed Wine, and on top of that have Flash 8, Dreamweaver 8 and Photoshop CS2 all installed and running fine, which is very cool!
My next tasks are to sort out my Three network 3G USB dongle and install and test the Second Life client. I'll let you know.
My over-all impressions of the unit are that is is well built, well spec'ed and very smooth to use. Exactly what I was looking for!
The unit itself comes put of the box with the usual manuals but does expect you to burn the reinsallation and drivers disks yourself. I've always though that this is a rather mean policy when you're selling a device that doesn't include an optical drive, but maybe that's just me.
The Aspire One is also not available as a Linux option - it's only available as Windows XP. If you're read my other blog posts, you'll already know that I'm not a fan and it won't suprise you to know that Windows XP didn't last 24 hours before I wiped it and installed Ubuntu 9.04 - my current favourite operating system.
OK. Other things worth knowing about the unit: the D150 comes with a 6 cell Li Ion battery that gives up to 6 hour use, the keyboard has a full right-hand shift key and (unlike my old EeePC 900) has proper page-up and page-down keys rather than function key combinations. The screen is nice and clear and bright, and the unit has all the expected ports 3xUSB, audio in/out and SD card. One nice touch is that the bios supports an additional function (you press F12 at boot up) that allows you to choose the boot device. Makes installing from CD or booting from a USB very easy...
... about as easy as installing Ubuntu 9.04. It really was as simple as: download the ISO, burn a disk (I have a USB DVD RAM drive), boot the disk, choose install, provide user info and select the simple options for everything else. Long story short - it just worked. Audio, USB, SD Cards, Wifi, Lan all seem to be working. The Wifi light on the front doesn't, but my experiences with an A110 lead me to believe that installing the backports will fix that - I'll post the results. The only untested things are the Mic and the WebCam.
As far as applications go, I'm running Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, OpenOffice 3, Gimp, Inkscape and Blender as linux native. Blender is the only one that has issues and it looks like patchy 3D drivers, but I'll let you know when I find out more. In addition, I have installed Wine, and on top of that have Flash 8, Dreamweaver 8 and Photoshop CS2 all installed and running fine, which is very cool!
My next tasks are to sort out my Three network 3G USB dongle and install and test the Second Life client. I'll let you know.
My over-all impressions of the unit are that is is well built, well spec'ed and very smooth to use. Exactly what I was looking for!
Friday, 24 April 2009
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:
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.
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'
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.
Sunday, 5 April 2009
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 ....
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 ....
Thursday, 2 April 2009
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.
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.
Wednesday, 1 April 2009
Essential accessories for your netbook #1: USB DVD RAM Drive
Having a netbook means that you're going to be taking it with you, so having a way of backing it up is more or less essential. A DVD RAM Drive is a very cheap way of making a robust backup of your stuff. It's also a great way to install any of the alternative operating systems (Linux based, Microsoft or others) that you might want to try on your netbook.
I spent £39.99 at a local Staples store and bought a LiteOn DX-20A3P drive which has proved to be simply brilliant. Burning either CDs or DVDs the drive works well, isn't too noisy and is standard enough that plugged into my EeePC or any of the Windows based computers that I use it just simply works.
The whole point about my netbook is that it's portable and it travelling with me every day, regardless of where I go. Being able to do that without worrying about dropping it *and* losing all my data leaves me able to enjoy it's ease of use where-ever I go ... and then there's the 20+ alternative operating systems I've installed with it.
I spent £39.99 at a local Staples store and bought a LiteOn DX-20A3P drive which has proved to be simply brilliant. Burning either CDs or DVDs the drive works well, isn't too noisy and is standard enough that plugged into my EeePC or any of the Windows based computers that I use it just simply works.
The whole point about my netbook is that it's portable and it travelling with me every day, regardless of where I go. Being able to do that without worrying about dropping it *and* losing all my data leaves me able to enjoy it's ease of use where-ever I go ... and then there's the 20+ alternative operating systems I've installed with it.
Saturday, 28 March 2009
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.
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.
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