Things to come!

I wanted to try out the upcoming XFCE 4.6 so I installed the latest snapshot of the upcoming Xubuntu 9.04. After installing Sickboy's Kuki kernel, removing the network manager and replacing it with wicd, but no other system tweaks, I am happy to report power-on to desktop (bypassing login screen) takes 25 seconds. This is with the 8gb SSD model. So far, everything that was working with Sickboy's kernel under 8.10 is working (lan, sound, camera, etc.). I'll post experiences in a couple of days. Of course, since 9.04 is alpha, it can break with any update from the Xubuntu team.

 

That's impressive!
What about battery life?

 

Battery life is currently 2:20 but I haven't finished tweaking it. I'm hoping to get 2:30 when I'm done. The boot time is great. The 25 seconds includes being able to access the internet. The last xubuntu update broke my sound, though, so I need to investigate what happened. I'm pretty sure it's xubuntu related because it was working and the kernel is still sickboys.

It's taking me a bit longer to test because of some time pressures from work.

 

Have a look at your /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base, maybe the update has changed that.

 

That's wonderful, I plan to go through a replacement of Linpus with Xubuntu, if you'll post all your tweaks I'll be much grateful!
Plus, speaking of sound, could anyone confirm if with Sickboy's kernel (is it the new Kuki kernel?) usb-audio is ok and alsa correctly recognizes external usb audio devices? It's crucial to me...

 

Well after a week or so of the 9.04 alpha, I've gone back to eeebuntu (www.eeebuntu.org). The next version of Xubuntu certainly looks very promising, however, it gets broke about every other day with the updates. That goes along with it being alpha at this point, but I do need to use my aspireone to get things done, too!

Here is what I can report:
boot speed is very fast -using wicd, boot time to accessing internet is 25 seonds
battery life okay - I was getting 2:20, but after the last updates, it is around 2:00.
everything seems to be working - of course I'm using sickboys kernel, but even without it, most things were working. I'm running /home from the left card slot and do not have problems with suspend (haven't tried hibernate).
applied all of the recommended aspireone tweaks from the 8.10 wiki except for the sound as it was already working.

My recommedation would be to wait at least until the betas are released or look at kuki or eeebuntu

 

Whoa, now I'm just writing from Xubuntu 9.04... Now that I know I will not update anything...
Just a question, to have wicd working I just need to remove Network Manager and install it or are there any config files that need editing?

 

Yes, to install wicd, it will want to uninstall network manager. That is fine. If I recall, in the process of doing so, it will give you an error (because network manager will be running but it's files will get removed). Don't worry about it and reboot afterward and everything will be fine. There won't be any config files to change. In wicd you will need to set your wep or wpa password, if you are using one.

I think you will find 9.04 pretty usable, even when it would break, I could still use it, but it was getting annoying. That's why I switched back. Of course, I was accepting any and all updates from Xubuntu, which in hindsight was not a good idea. I have an 8gb SSD, so other than changing to Sickboy's kuki 0.2 kernel. I pretty much applied all of the recommended tweaks except for the sound as it was already compiled in. Plus, with this kernel, you'll get your wifi led working again!

Anyway, I plan on trying it again, once it hits beta. I just couldn't commit the time right now to continue testing it.