[Ubuntu-US-CA] Netbook Remix

[Daniel Gimpelevich]

On Mon, 11 Aug 2008 20:19:00 -0700, Troy Ready wrote:

> I haven't yet tried it on my beloved eee. With it's current 1 gig of
> ram, I've been very happy with the performance of XFCE. I'll be
> interested to see GNOME's performance on it when I put in 2 gigs.
> 
> That said, I haven't looked at NR in a couple months. I'll check out
> Grant's links when I get home and perhaps give it a shot.
> 
> -Troy
> -----Original Message-----
> 
> From:  Nathan Haines <nhaines at ubuntu.com>
> Subj:  Re: [Ubuntu-US-CA] Netbook Remix Date:  Mon Aug 11, 2008 19:11
> Size:  935 bytes
> To:  Ubuntu US California
> <ubuntu-us-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
> 
> Grant Bowman wrote:
>> I saw a Netbook Remix [1] demonstration at Ubucon a few days ago.  I
>> didn't mention it in the IRC meeting because I wanted to take some time
>> to gather together a few URLs and look into it a bit.  I hope you find
>> this summary useful.
>>   
> I think Troy had this installed on his eePC, and Jake might have as well
> at the Global Bug Jam. I didn't ask him about it since he was actually
> busy triaging bugs, butit looked pretty functional on such a small
> screen. Thanks for the links, because I'd like to know more about it.
> 
> If the OLPC project doesn't get its act together then I have a couple
> computers which might need the Netbook Remix in a couple of years. :(
> 
> Regards,
> Nathan
> 
> --
> Nathan Haines <nhaines at ubuntu.com> Ubuntu
> California Local Community Team

At the end of Ubucon, there was barely enough time for the Netbook Remix 
to be explained, let alone demonstrated. Fortunately, I had already been 
to the Canonical boot on the show floor for a demonstration, and I must 
say it was the best product displayed at LinuxWorld Expo. However, there 
is no installer offered to create such a system right away -- or is 
there? A week ago, I took a look at somebody's Eee model 701 running the 
original Xandros, and by the time I finally figured out how to get a 
shell on it (or do anything else), I had already prepared this for 
installation:
http://www.ubuntu-eee.com/?module=moreinfo
It's a community distribution using the Ubuntu OEM installation program, 
customized for the Eee models, including a replacement of the standard 
desktop with the Netbook Remix. One unfortunate customization that I 
cannot understand is the removal of Ekiga in favor of stupid Skype. I'm 
more neutral on some of the hardware-specific customizations, like the 
hacks needed to get the Eee's wi-fi to work:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/182489
The wi-fi still fails upon hibernation, necessitating a reboot. One can 
also cancel the hardware-specific customizations:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne#Install%20NetBook%20Remix%20+%20Ubuntu%20Intrepid%20Ibex%208.10(Latest)%20on%20the%20Acer%20Aspire%20One

Two months ago, the long-time organizer of the Silicon Valley BSD User 
Group had a problem where the NTFS Win2k installation on one of his 
ancient tablet PCs fscked itself (literally). Since it had no CD drive 
and no floppy drive, he didn't have any way to reinstall Win2k, so he 
thought to give GNU/Linux a try on it. My immediate thought was the 
Netbook Remix, but when I saw that it was only an add-on to the standard 
desktop, I hesitated to put it on a 500MHz Celeron with 128MB of RAM. 
Luckily, when I saw the Netbook Remix at the Canonical booth, this was 
also mentioned:
http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/mobile/releases/hardy/
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/Cases/UMEdesktop
Unfortunately, it was intended for devices with 1GB of RAM, and had never 
even been tested with anything less than 512MB. After some thought, I 
decided it was the least unsuitable distro for the machine. Here is the 
result: (The "other desktop" refers to Hildon.)

-------- Forwarded Message --------
> From: Jesse Monroy <jesse650 at gmail.com>
> To: daniel at gimpelevich.san-francisco.ca.us
> Cc: Rick Moen <rick at linuxmafia.com>
> Subject: Daniel thanks.
> Date: Mon, 18 Aug 2008 21:22:01 -0700
> 
> Daniel,
> I just wanted to send a thank you note to you for setting up my pentop
> computer. As it stands, I believe this will be the best system I have
> running. Your recommendation to go with the other desktop prove
> perfect. I have been playing with it and I was overjoyed to find my
> pccard2 wireless network adapter working.
> 
> BTW, I will be at the next Cabal. Do you have a request? I would be
> happy to bring any food requests.
> 
> Thanks again
> Jesse