Ubuntu on Asus/Acer netbooks

[Wendy Galovich]

On Thursday 26 March 2009 16:26:40 Nik N wrote:
> If anybody reading this has successfully installed Ubuntu on either
> Asus or Acer 10"-screen "netbook" (Asus EEEPC, Acer Aspire One), I
> would much appreciate hearing the details, such as: which make/model
> netbook, which version of Ubuntu and which, if any, peripherals ARE
> NOT fully operational.
>
> Thank you in advance,
> Nik N.

I'm using Ubuntu 8.10 on an Asus eeepc 1000H.  Currently I'm running the 
generic kernel 2.6.27-11 with ndiswrapper for the wireless.  The webcam works 
with cheese, but the few times I've tried to use it with Skype, the person at 
the other end of the connection wasn't receiving the video.  I haven't delved 
further into that problem, primarily due to lack of time.

You can also use the kernel from array.org which is custom-built for the eeepc 
and its Atom processor, which I did for a couple of months when I got the 
eeepc early this year.  However, I did notice two things at the time that 
prompted me to try the generic kernel.

The first was that there was a time lag in kernel updates from array.org, which 
is the outside repository for the compared to their appearance in the Ubuntu 
repositories.  I will clarify here that AIUI the array.org repository is 
maintained by one person, and he does an awesome job.  Nevertheless, I did 
have a bit of a concern about timeliness of security updates.  YMMV on that 
depending on your particular situation.

The other thing I noticed was that the native wireless driver kept reporting 
the speed at 1 Mb/s, whereas ndiswrapper reports it at 54 Mb/s, as I would 
expect it to.  I can't say there was a noticeable difference in subjective 
experience, however, so it's possible that it's a reporting error in the 
Notification Area applet rather than a functional difference.

Wendy