Jamie's Random Musings

I have promised several people that I would take a look at Ubuntu 9.10 and several of its derivatives on netbook hardware. My intention is to consider the following:

- Ubuntu (plain vanilla, Gnome desktop)
- Ubuntu Netbook Remix
- Kubuntu (KDE desktop, both with and without KDE netbook)
- Xubuntu (Xfce desktop)

I will be trying each of these on my ASUS N10J netbook, which I believe is very typical of netbook hardware configuration - Intel Atom 270 CPU, Intel 945 GME graphic controller, 10.2" 1024x600 screen, wired and wireless network connection, and bluetooth. The one thing that makes the N10J unique is that it also has an nVidia GeForce 9300 graphic controller which can be switched on and off.

First up, before diving into the Ubuntu derivatives, is the standard distribution. The basic installation, and the standard Gnome desktop, work just fine on the N10J. All of the devices are recognized and supported with no trouble. There are several things that you can change in the standard Ubuntu desktop to make it more netbook-friendly. One of the first things I always do (and not only on netbooks, but it is particularly important here), is right-click on each of the panels, choose Properties, and enable the Autohide attribute. That helps squeeze every last bit of usable space out of the small screen. In that same Properties panel, on netbooks I have recently been disabling the Expand attribute. That lets the panels be only as wide as necessary for their current content, rather than always spanning the entire screen. That sometimes helps by not obscuring parts of windows, but I think it also helps by simply making the screen appear less "full". I am also of the opinion that space on netbook displays is more critical in the vertical direction than the horizontal (as they are typically 1024x600 or even 1024x576), so I also change the Orientation of the Bottom panel to one of the sides (choose whichever you are more comfortable with).

Another useful area to adjust on netbooks is Power Management. You can get there either by right-clicking on the battery icon in the top panel, if it is visible, or by going to System/Preferences/Power Management. In addition to power saving adjustments, you can choose what action to take on various events; I want my netbooks to continue running when I close the lid to carry them around the house, so I set that attribute to Blank Screen rather than Suspend. Also on the subject of Power Management, both the Suspend and Hibernate operations work properly on my N10J. It's worth knowing, though, that when awakening from Hibernation, it will initially look as if the netbook is going through a new boot, but as it comes up it will notice the hibernation image and will then resume the state it was in when it hibernated.

The Fn- keys work for hardware control as they should, which has not always been the case with previous releases. I am able to adjust screen brightness, audio volume and mute, turn the wireless receiver on and off, and Suspend the N10J.

One slightly fun note. Most netbooks that are based on the Intel Atom CPU also have the Intel 945/950 graphic controller. The driver for that is good enough to support Extra Visual Effects. Some people like those, some hate them, and some say they feel sick when they watch the squiggly windows. You can turn them on by going to System/Preferences/Appearance, then the Visual Effects tab. Try it, and see if you like it. It's easy enough to turn off again.

If your netbook includes Bluetooth support, it will be detected and activated automatically when Ubuntu is installed. To use a Bluetooth mouse, just click the icon in the top Panel, choose Set up new device, and then press the Connecct button on the mouse. Once a mouse is configured, it will continue to work after rebooting the netbook. I have also used Bluetooth connection to transfer pictures from my mobile phone to the netbook. Bluetooth support is even better in 9.10 than it has been in previous releases. For one thing, Bluetooth printers are automatically detected by the Printing Configuration process, which makes getting them connected much easier than it was previously. Connecting my HP Officejet h470 printer was a breeze this time, and as with mice, once it has been connected, it will automatically reconnect when Ubuntu restarts. By the way, if you don't intend to use any Bluetooth devices, you can save a tiny bit of screen space by right-clicking on the Bluetooth icon, choose Preferences, and un-check the Show Icon box.

When you install Ubuntu, during the user definition you can specify if you want the user to be automatically logged in on boot. If you change your mind about this setting after installation, you can change it by going to System/Administration/Login Screen.

So, with these changes I have ended up with what I consider to be a very usable netbook desktop for the standard Ubuntu distribution. I think it is good for experienced users, who know their way around and don't need to have everything spread open in front of them all the time. Next up, I'll take a look at the Karmic Netbook Remix, and see what has been done to make Ubuntu even more user friendly on netbooks.

jw 4/11/2009

Ok, Ubuntu Karmic has been out for a few days now, and I have to say that both for me personally, and I get the impression for a good part of the Ubuntu user community, the feelings are slightly mixed. i find this mildly amusing, because when Jaunty came out, six months ago, I thought it was truly excellent, and it was met with a collective yawn, and a lot of comments along the lines of "why bother?". This time, the buildup to the release of Karmic has been pretty significant, fueled to some extent by comparisons with Win7. But now that the release is available, suddenly there is are some complaints...

As I have said previously, one of the biggest changes in Ubuntu is the switch to GRUB 2, at least for new/clean installations. I don't do upgrades on this kind of software, so I have no direct experience with that, but if I understand correctly, installing Karmic as an upgrade to an existing pre-Karmic Ubuntu release will leave Legacy GRUB intact. What I would say is, if you have never done anything or changed anything with GRUB or its configuration files, you're likely to be ok either way. If you have changed GRUB in any way previously, you are likely to be in for a surprise if you make a clean install. Be prepared to read the release documents carefully.

I have seen one other problem so far. When I install on my ASUS N10J, it seems the the installer (Ubiquity) crashes near the end - I think it is during the finall installation and cleanup. The install has progressed far enough that I am left with a functioning system, but certain things are wrong - for one, it will not automatically mount USB disks, and several packages that should have been deleted (such as gparted) are still present. I haven't been able to isolate this far enough to really pin it down, though.

I have also heard from a few people who have other problems, in particular with installing on an HP 2133 Mini-Note. Again, I always make clean installations, and it works just fine for me, but it seems that upgrade installations run into problems with things like sound and wireless networking. Again, be careful.

Last, but certainly not least, the release of Ubuntu is creeping even more in the "commercial" direction, with the addition of things like Ubuntu One, the Software Soure (or whatever it is called), and the likes. If you are a Linux/FOSS "purist", you really need to think very carefully before installing Ubuntu, and look at some of those things.

I have installed Karmic on my Fujitsu S6510 Lifebook, HP 2133 Mini-Note, HP Pavillion dv2-1010ez, and ASUS N10J, with only the few problems mentioned above.

My next few days will be spent looking at UNR 9.10 and the Kubuntu netbook release. I hope to find some nice things to talk about there!

jw

Is there anyone around who doesn't know that the next release of Ubuntu Linux, 9.10 (Karmic Koala) is due out tomorrow? I doubt it, and even if there were they wouldn't be reading this, so I'll just forge ahead.

I don't intend to add my voice to the chorus singing the praises of the new release. What I would like to do is take a quick look at a few simple things that can go a long way in making the upgrade easier.

First, and this is very important, DO NOT DOWNLOAD FROM ANY OF THE "SECRET PRE-RELEASE LINKS" that have started to pop up in a few places. This is something new to me, I haven't seen it with any previous Ubuntu release, or any other Linux release for that matter. I suppose it is a good thing, a sign of how anxious people are to get this release. However, from what I can tell (and I have followed a few of them), they are nothing more than links to a recent Ubuntu "daily build". First, the daily builds are NOT the final release, and there is no way of knowing if they will be different in any significant way, but they certainly could be. Second, in many cases, after the download has been bounced between any number of "unofficial" systems, you can't even be sure of what version you are getting, how recent of a daily build it is, or anything else about it for that matter. If you can't wait, if you absolutely have to have it right now, at least go and get it directly from the Ubuntu daily build download.

Second, remember that the Ubuntu LiveCD image can now be copied to a USB stick, and then booted and installed from that. If your computer will boot from a USB drive, this will save you having to burn it to a CD. Assuming you are already running Ubuntu, the utility to copy the image to USB media is in the Administration menu. If you are changing from Windows to Ubuntu (congratulations), there is a free Windows utility to do the USB copy, check the Ubuntu download page.

Third, in addition to backing up your data before you install it (I know everyone was going to do that, weren't they?), consider taking the opportunity to really separate your data from the main Ubuntu installation. I'm sure there are a lot of people who, like me, were lazy with their first Ubuntu installation and shoved it all into one file system, thinking that they weren't going to keep it that long anyway, and now here they are still using it that way. This would be a good time to correct that.

Fourth, look carefully at the additional packages and programs that you have installed. Clean out the ones you don't need. If you have some which you installed from downloads, as I have for things like Opera, Gizmo, Picasa and such, they haven't been automatically updated by the Ubuntu Update Manager. This is a good time to check for a newer version, and if there is one remove the old version before you upgrade Ubuntu, then download and install the new version after the upgrade. In fact, check to see if your favorite package might have been picked up and included in the new release of Ubuntu, which would save you downloading and manually installing, and would get it included in automatic updates in the future.

Last, if you are going to install Ubuntu on a netbook or some other system with a very small screen, when you boot the LiveCD choose the "try Ubuntu without changes" option, instead of going directly to the "Install Ubuntu" option. Once it is booted, set auto-hide on both the upper and lower panels, by right-clicking on each of them, choose Properties, and then click auto-hide and OK. Then start the installation from the desktop icon. You'll be happy to have the little bit of extra screen space this gains you for the installation window.

jw 28/10/2009

Warning. The following is pure conjecture on my part.

The massive Hoopla surrounding the release of Windows 7 (aka Vista with Lipstick) got me wondering about the netbook market. As I see it, the first netbooks came along shortly after the release of Windows Vista. Microsoft was doing their utmost to kill XP, by setting cutoff dates for sales of licenses and preloaded systems. The fact that Vista was an absolute pig on netbooks gave Linux an opening, and several of the first few netbooks came preloaded with Linux. Then Microsoft finally started to realize that customers and OEMs alike were onto them about what a pig Vista was (and not only on netbook hardware), and they began clawing their way back into the market with a combination of continuing to allow the sale of XP, putting massive pressure on netbook manufacturers, spreading FUD though the media about netbook return rates and the like.

Now Windows 7 is available, and it doesn't take Carnac the Magnificent to predict that Microsoft will once again start trying to kill XP. Several people whose opinions and ability I respect here on ZDNet UK have said that Windows 7 works considerably better on netbooks than Vista did. But I still suspect that "Vista with Lipstick" will not work as well as a good Linux distribution on typical netbook hardware. Even more importantly, while Microsoft has been busy the past couple of years trying to put the lipstick on Vista, various Linux groups have been improving netbook-specific versions. The result is things like Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.10, which I think is rather nice (and a huge improvement over UNR 9.04), Moblin, which I absolutely hate but apparently it is very good for other types of users, and the KDE netbook version, which is still in early development but the early versions of it on Mandriva and Kubuntu look very interesting.

So, maybe we are at a point where a couple of things start to work in favor of Linux, in particular on netbooks. Here's what we can do to help it along. When you know, or even just see, someone with a netbook, and they are struggling to get Windows to work, just casually mention that Linux works very well on such systems. Even better, do as I do (something I learned from Jake, by the way...), and keep a USB stick with a live image of your favorite Linux netbook distribution handy, and use it to give them an immediate demonstration of how well it works. It might help. It might not. But one thing is for sure, doing nothing won't help.

jw 27/10/2009

I'm still keeping my dual-Atom CPU Multi-Boot Mini-Server up to date, so I was pleased to see the release of CentOS 5.4 a week or so ago. This is known as the Community Enterprise Operating System, and although it is based on a fresh compilation of the Red Hat Enterprise Linux sources, it goes far beyond being just that. It includes more and better packages, improved updating and repositories, and much more. Although this is a minor release step (5.3->5.4), there are some significant changes and improvements. Check the Release Announcement for general information, and the Release Notes for a detailed list of new and updated packages.

If you want to take a look at CentOS, this release has both i386 and x86_64 LiveCD downloads. One small word of caution, though. Unlike most other distributions, you can not install CentOS from the LiveCD, for that you have to download the DVD distribution. I installed the 64-bit distribution on MMS today with no problems.

jw 25/10/2009