Trouble with the IM application in Linpus Lite on Aspire One

Hi Forum!

I'm sorry if this topic has been discussed before, but haven't found anything on the web.
My father has an Acer Aspire One 110, that early model with Linpus Linux Lite. When connected to a wireless network, the IM application "misbehaves". When you run the application, it shuts down after a few seconds and then starts up again. And then it repeats the cycle until the computer is rebooted. I can't see any particular pattern here, it just shuts down and restarts randomly and it's probably related to some underlying process. But only when connected to a wireless network, so that has to be related in some way.

I can't figured out what's causing this. I'm not new to Linux, I know my way around the terminal and some pretty basic stuff but I don't have that much knowledge about what's going on behind the desktop. So I need your help, guys!

The computer is recently formatted and the OS has been reinstalled. No updates have been done except for BIOS, which is the latest version that Acer provides; 3310. I hope that helps!

I need your help on this!

Thanks!

 

Hi,

I've found the same problem.
In my case I think that it's linked to a 'live update' that's caused the instant messenger program to stop working. I wasn't paying much attention to when it stopped working, as it's the kids that use chat and they only complained a few days ago. Restoring to an old backup that I had (maybe June 2009) worked - but would mean that I couldn't update any more.
I'm no linux expert, so I don't know what's broken and I can't help to fix it I'm afraid.

There are ways around the problem though...

If you want just MSN:
I've taken the easy way out and installed aMSN for the kids
(open a terminal screen by pressing Alt + F2, typing "terminal" and clicking run. Type "sudo yum install amsn" and pressing enter)
Depending on how much fiddling you've done with your aa1, you may not have the most up to date software libraries - google "macles" and have a look around that fantastic blog for info about how to update them if you need to.

If it's a different chat service that you're after try:
An alternative program is "pidgin", which supports multiple protocols. This one takes a bit more installing and you'll break chat and email (there's a comflict with the libraries that the acer uses to power it's own chat and email programs - libpurple which I think you've got to remove first).
But after all that, pidgin complains that it needs 'ssl libraries' when you try to use it with msn and I haven't been able to google my way out of that little problem.


To get these programs to work once they're installed, you can enter the name of the program into the Alt + F2 Run Program dialog box, or google "group-app.xml" for instructions on how to put an icon onto the desktop. (e.g. search for "acerim" and replace with "fedora-amsn").

I know that the above information is a bit sketchy to say the least, but hopefully may be enough to get you started...

Hopefully somebody else with a bit more knowledge will pick up on this and hopefully offer their insight.

good luck

 

Had the same problem on my Aspire One and, yes, it's most probably caused by LiveUpdate patches 180084 and 180086.
More precisely, the problem most probably is due to some software that you installed from some other repositories or stand-alone RPMs that conflicts with the updates inside these ACER patches. Unfortunately, ACER installation scripts don't notify you properly when some errors occur during patch installation - and as a result of that you get a system that has some packages (e.g. Acer Communication Suite) updated to the latest versions, and others (e.g. GLIBC or some other libraries, that Acer Communication Suite depends on) left at the old version - which evidently renders updated packages broken...

A relatively simple workaround for the problem is as follows:

1. go to the Acer "updates" site: http://linpuscdn.040services.net/cdn/ACER/AspireOne[/*:3hbtkjby]
2. choose the directory that matches the exact version of Linpus OS installed on your machine (check Control Panel -> System to find this out)[/*:3hbtkjby]
3. download acs_im_20090430.sh and acs_final_20090715.sh files (they correspond to patch 180084 and 180086 correspondingly)[/*:3hbtkjby]
4. open the Terminal[/*:3hbtkjby]
5. make downloaded files executable via chmod 755 acs_*.sh[/*:3hbtkjby]
6. try to install the 1st patch via sudo ./acs_im_20090430.sh - it will most probably fail, telling you that some packages can't be updated due to some other packages depending on them (in my case, the gcc compiler installed from Fedora 8 repositories was the cause of all this mess)[/*:3hbtkjby]
7. remove all those "depending" packages via rpm -e <package_name> command and re-try the 1st patch installation; don't worry about re-running the patch installation as many times as needed - it won't do any harm[/*:3hbtkjby]
8. once you manage to successfully install the 1st patch - install the 2nd patch via sudo ./acs_final_20090715.sh[/*:3hbtkjby]
9. that's it - now your IM application should work again[/*:3hbtkjby]
10. now if you need back some of the packages you uninstalled - you should find a newer version of them and re-install them[/*:3hbtkjby]

Hope this helps,
Alex