Speed:

Karmic seems to be getting a lot of press regarding boot speed,but I cant say that I notice much of a difference.  In fact, the new login window and GDM seem to possibly be slower (right now I am comparing this to Linux Mint GLORIA). But it does seem to be faster doing a suspend/resume. It also seems to be a small amount faster in all around performance.

Improvements:

One of the things I have always liked about Ubuntu is how well the ‘Add/Remove Programs’ has worked. This has gotten even better with the introduction of the Ubuntu Software Center . This combines all that was good with the old system and improves upon it. They have also improved the mechanism for adding a PPA (personal package archive) for software that is in active development (such as chromium). This is now accomplished with the simple line: sudo add-apt-repository ppa:x where x is the name of the project (chromium daily). I will (hopefully) be doing a full how-to on PPA’s (both for pre-Karmic, then Karmic) shortly. Another improvement is that at least in the main line version of Ubuntu which has always been very much into integration of the different desktop apps, you now seem to have the ability to remove any one of these applications without causing any problems with the rest of the suite. Specificaly, if you chose to, you can now remove Evolution/Empathy without complaint from the ubuntu-desktop package. This is good for the users (like myself) who appreciate the effort made to integrate all the applications into a cohesive desktop, but disagree with the choice of software used (I personally prefer Pidgin IM client and Thunderbird mail client) .

Theme:

The new them for Karmic seems to have finally gotten past the Brown/Orange theme and gotten into the realm of a darker theme for the desktop. This includes a more streamlined GTK theme (smaller buttons, smaller borders). The Xubuntu theme sticks with blue, but also brings a darker feel, which I personally enjoy.

Other Thoughts:

The new release seems to boast better battery life (have not confirmed yet, still testing this) and required no additional work to get all of the usual features working, though it seems that microphone support (for the built in mic at least) is still non-existent.

This is my first look of the beta, and I will update this post once I have used it longer. My initial reaction is very hopeful, and if the final release shapes up to be as good as the beta promises, Karmic will be a bit hit. I hope to be doing more distro-hopping in the coming weeks, as well more general how-to’s. As always please send me any suggestions for new distros to try, or any how-to’s you would like to see.

-x1101

Hello again.

Today’s topic is another general introduction before we really get started on our journey. Since the AAO (like most net-books) doesn’t have a CD ROM drive, UNetBootIn is a must for installing a different OS. That being said, I thought it would be appropriate to spend a bit of time delving into the specifics of UNetBootIn so that anyone who wants to has enough information to try a distro or two out for themselves.

The only things you need use UNetBootIn are 1) A PC running Windows or Linux and 2) A USB drive large enough to hold the disk image (ISO) of your desired distro. For most distro’s a 1 or 2GB drive should be plenty, but if your prefer a meatier offering, such as Fedora, you will need at least a 6GB drive (because Fedora and others are DVD ISO’s, which are approximately 4.5 GB in size.) I have a 2 and an 8 GB drive for this, depending on how large the image is, and on which one is not being used.

To start off, open up UNetBootIn. You have two options on how to use it. Firstly, you can use the top portion of the application to download a specific version of your distro of choice (many are included, though often not the most up to date versions)and burn it all in a single step.

The image below shows this method with the live image for Ubuntu 9.04 chosen. If you were to select a location and start the process, you would download and install the Ubuntu live installer environment onto the USB drive selected below.

The other way to use UnetBootIn is to download the ISO on to your computer manually and then create the USB installer. Use this if your distro or version of choice is not listed in the automatic download menu.

With either option simply insert your USB drive and select it from the “Drive” menu. Then Press OK and the installation (and download if you selected the automatic download) will start.

If you selected the Automatic download your screen will look like this, and the download will begin. How long this will take depends on the size of the image you have chosen and your connection speed. This will download the ISO file of your selected distro and save it as a TEMP file in the default location for your OS. After the install you may want to go and delete this to save space.

Regardless of which method you choose, UNetBootIn will extract and copy files into specific locations to use for booting the installation environment. It will then install the boot loader and finish up.

If you are doing this download on the PC you wish to install the new distro on, go right ahead and click the “Reboot” option on the next screen. Otherwise simply select “Exit.” Either will close the installer. From here you simply insert the USB boot device you have created into your AAO (or other PC/Netbook.) Make sure you have “USB Hard drive” or similar chosen as your 1^st Boot device in the BIOS (the initial start-up screen will flash press <Some Key> to enter setup, press that key to enter the BIOS and make changes, carefully) and boot up your new installer.

Hopefully this little UNetBootIn walkthrough will be useful to you. This is a very powerful tool for installing operating systems on any PC that does not have a CD ROM drive (as long as it has a USB port.)

Stick around, because next I will begin reviews in earnest. The first distro up is #!CrunchBang Linux, a minimalist project based on Ubuntu, running the OpenBox window manager.

-x1101

Before I start to review Distro’s for the Acer Aspire One I should probably give you a bit of information about my and about the specific model I am doing the reviews for.

My Name is Lyle and I own an Acer Aspire One D150.  This is the 10.1 inch model with 1GB of RAM and a 120 GB Hard Drive.  I got the 6 Cell battery rather than the standard 3 Cell to improve battery life.  I have been using various Linux Distro’s for about 6 years now. I started on, and have mostly stayed with, Ubuntu. While I have spend a majority of my time in the Linux community on Ubuntu systems, I have ventured out into others as well. I have played with Fedora, Debian, Gentoo, and several Ubuntu derivatives including Fluxbuntu, !#Crunchbang and Mint.

When I purchased my AAO it came with Windows XP Home on it. That saw exactly one partial boot, and that is only because I had failed to successfully set the proper boot device.

My first install was on UNR (Ubuntu NetbookRemix).  Because this was the first Linux distro on the AAO (always named Rogue2, as all my machines are Snub-fighter call signs) it will sort of server as an unofficial standard against which all the others will be judged. This is in no way saying that UNR is the “best” distro for a netbook. In fact that is what I hope to discover, what really is best.  So I invite you to send me any suggestions for distro’s to review. And just to be up front. I do not intend to stick solely to Linux. I am willing to try everything from Win7 to *BSD.

So without further Ado, my review of UNR:

UNR was very easy to install, since it was simply an Ubuntu installer.  Since this was a base install I had to do a bit of partitioning.  I set up a / partition, as well as a data partition, which is now split to a second distro. I use 2GB of swap space.  As per the wiki article, everything worked out of the box with the notable exception of the microphone, which does not matter to me. The interface for UNR is unique.  Below is stock shot from the Ubuntu wiki of what would look like.

Click on the Image above to be taken to the article about this.  While it is based on Gnome, it seems to ignore the standard thoughts as to what a ‘desktop’ is. With the ‘Go Home’ button in the top left where the usual Gnome menu would be you are brought back to this screen. All applications launched are maximized (a program called maximus), as well as placed into the window picker applet beside the go home icon. This allows for a maximum screen usage.  Being a ‘power user’, I had to grab a few custom config files for command line interface, but otherwise, no work was required to get this up and going.  As for daily use, it is very akin to using a regular Ubuntu 9.04 system. The same update notifications, same Add/Remove programs method, same repositories.

UNR had no issues with suspend and resume. Very speedy, did not disable audio, network came back up almost before you could unlock the system. The one other issue (which I really consider a feature) is that the AAO seems not to send any kind of signal to the OS when the lid is closed. This means that you do have to spend a few minutes in the power options changed ‘when lid is closed’ and ‘when power button is pushed’ options to your liking. As I said, I really consider this a benefit rather than a problem, because it saved me the trouble of setting it up to ignore the lid being closed.

Overall:

I have to say that UNR was good fit for the AAO. It makes good use of the screen, has no issues with wireless, keeps batter time to about 4 hours, and for the most part works out of the box (after a visit from the UnetBootIn fairy). There is also a strong community (really just a sub-group of the Ubuntu community) as well as readily available documentation.  Score 8/10.

Next:

Next I will take a look at !#Crunchbang and see how it fares on the AAO.