Alternative to OneLinux and Linpus

The OneLinux project appears to have been temporarily torpedoed by impatient users complaining about something they aren't even paying for. Linpus Lite is OK, but has too any customizations, which makes it a bit tricky to get it working with a "normal" desktop like Gnome. I am starting to think that maybe our best bet is to get full support for the Aspire One hardware included in a standard distribution like Fedora or Ubuntu.

Both Fedora and Ubuntu are coming out with major updates soon. Ubuntu Intrepid Ibex is scheduled for release at the end of October, and Fedora 10 is scheduled for release at the end of November. Both of these dates could slip a bit. I've heard of people trying early betas of both of these, with no success, but betas are just that. If they worked as well as a final release, the beta would be the final release.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone has any official information about whether or not most of the Aspire One's hardware will likely be supported by the final releases of either of these distributions.

 

Mandriva 2008.1
Mandriva 2009 RC2

Both distros are working in full out-of-the-box:

viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4489&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=mandriva
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=4489&p=30057&hilit=mandriva#p30057

and:

viewtopic.php?f=5&t=2130&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

 

I had reported that Fedora 10 beta didn't work, but I'm happy to report now that that was due to user error (I made the bootable USB before the ISO was done downloading, duh!).

But it worked fine the second and third attempts with only minor glitches. Wifi worked (I only had to choose my connection), and the Fn buttons that I tried mostly worked, except some of them didn't have the on-screen display like in Linpus. The wifi slider switch turned wifi off but didn't turn it back on.

All in all, I'm very happy with Fedora in all its Gnome glory and plan to keep it unless something just blows up, like the network manager in Linpus did for me. It's slow to boot, and when it's running it likes to swap so I'll either have to add memory or use an SD card for swap.

The only tweaks I had to make were shrinking the fonts and getting everything on one panel because the default Fedora top and bottom panels use too much of the rare vertical screen space in the 1280x600 display.

 

Like JimK, I'm using (mostly) Fedora 10, but have also run the Ubuntu 8.10 alpha6 (beta awaits installation). The following comment applies to both: The xD card reader doesn't work; the requisite modules have not been accepted into the mainline kernel and the existing versions (which, I assume, are what Linpus uses in their rather old kernel-2.6.23) do not work OOB with kernel 2.6.27.

 

I have just installed 2008.1 - it works fine apart from the card readers only sometimes appearing - sometimes one, sometimes 2 and sometimes none. I have been asked the following by the Mandriva forum.
Quote:
2381 -> 2384 appear to be the relevant IDs. But I'm not entirely sure :\ I think 2381 is the slot that's working, and 2832 is *likely* the one that's not.

Could you maybe check in Linpus the lspci -v output, see if there's anything useful in /var/log/messages about what driver it's using? I'm trying to nail down exactly which ID relates to the second slot, and possibly what driver it needs...

End quote

I have taken Linpus off - so if anyone can get me the answers Id be very grateful.
Apart from that it works a treat!

 

bij deze de output voor: "lspci -v"

Code:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel 945GME Express Memory Controller Hub (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel 945GME Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03) (prog-if 00 [VGA])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
	Memory at 58480000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
	I/O ports at 60c0 [size=8]
	Memory at 40000000 (32-bit, prefetchable) [size=256M]
	Memory at 58500000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=256K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Mobile 945GM/GMS, 943/940GML Express Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 03)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Memory at 58400000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=512K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) HD Audio Controller: Realtek ALC662G/268 (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
	Memory at 58540000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=16K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Bus: primary=00, secondary=01, subordinate=01, sec-latency=0
	I/O behind bridge: 00005000-00005fff
	Memory behind bridge: 57300000-583fffff
	Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000050000000-0000000050ffffff
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Bus: primary=00, secondary=02, subordinate=02, sec-latency=0
	I/O behind bridge: 00003000-00004fff
	Memory behind bridge: 56300000-572fffff
	Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000051000000-00000000520fffff
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1c.2 PCI bridge: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 3 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Bus: primary=00, secondary=03, subordinate=03, sec-latency=0
	I/O behind bridge: 00002000-00002fff
	Memory behind bridge: 55200000-562fffff
	Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000052100000-00000000530fffff
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [Normal decode])
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Bus: primary=00, secondary=04, subordinate=04, sec-latency=0
	I/O behind bridge: 00001000-00001fff
	Memory behind bridge: 54100000-551fffff
	Prefetchable memory behind bridge: 0000000053100000-00000000540fffff
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
	I/O ports at 6080 [size=32]

00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
	I/O ports at 6060 [size=32]

00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
	I/O ports at 6040 [size=32]

00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02) (prog-if 00 [UHCI])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 19
	I/O ports at 6020 [size=32]

00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 20 [EHCI])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 16
	Memory at 58544400 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=1K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2) (prog-if 01 [Subtractive decode])
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0
	Bus: primary=00, secondary=05, subordinate=05, sec-latency=32
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel 82801GBM (ICH7-M) LPC Interface Bridge (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, medium devsel, latency 0
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1f.2 IDE interface: Intel 82801GBM/GHM (ICH7 Family) SATA IDE Controller (rev 02) (prog-if 80 [Master])
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
	I/O ports at 01f0 [size=8]
	I/O ports at 03f4 [size=1]
	I/O ports at 0170 [size=8]
	I/O ports at 0374 [size=1]
	I/O ports at 60a0 [size=16]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: medium devsel, IRQ 17
	I/O ports at 6000 [size=32]

02:00.0 Ethernet controller: Realtek RTL8102E PCI Express Fast Ethernet controller (rev 02)
	Subsystem: Acer Incorporated [ALI] Unknown device 015b
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 17
	I/O ports at 3000 [size=256]
	Memory at 51010000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=4K]
	Memory at 51000000 (64-bit, prefetchable) [size=64K]
	Expansion ROM at 51020000 [disabled] [size=128K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

03:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros AR5006EG 802.11 b/g Wireless PCI Express Adapter (rev 01)
	Subsystem: Foxconn International, Inc. Unknown device e008
	Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 0, IRQ 18
	Memory at 55200000 (64-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=64K]
	Capabilities: <access denied>

var/log/messages is empty and there's also a file called "message", but this one just contains what has been mounted, not which driver it uses

grtzzz
Z

 

I am joyfully using Debian Lenny, with a little tweaking as detailed here: