Ubuntu Netbook Remix 1.01

Thanks Mikespug, that fix cut down my boot a couple seconds and somehow made converting to ext2 work for me as well. Bootchart says 19 sec.

Cheers

 

Okay, I guess I should have been clearer. I'm coming from 8.04.1, which has the netbook desktop for the eeepc. I guess I need to get rid of that first before putting this one in. I don't know how to do that beyond doing a fresh install of 8.04 and going from there.

So, when it comes to the gnome-panel: Where are the applets on which I right-click? If I right-click on an empty place, where would I do that - on the desktop? If so, nothing happens. Also, the instructions say that maximus doesn't load automatically but I can add that for my session through gnome-session-properties, which as you can imagine confuses me as well.

I'm getting very frustrated because it seems every time I want to do something with Linux it doesn't work and I end up spending hours on the forums and wikis not being able to find an answer. I am still a complete newb with this stuff but I want to make it work!

 

I believe it may need to be made clear that this thread discussion is regarding the Ubuntu netbook remix "image" that is available for download, not the desktop "conversion". That being said the tips that you'll find discussed here are tips related to a fresh installation of the UNR image. Follow the links that I posted earlier in the thread and you'll find detailed instructions on how to install Ubuntu netbook remix from the downloadable image.

In any case...to add an applet to the panel you simply right-click on any empty space on the panel and select "add to panel". you will then be presented with a list of available "applets" that you can add to the panel and then reposition by right-clicking on them and selecting move. Hope that helps. I would recommend a fresh install using the UNR remix however for anyone following this thread as tips apply to that specific image.

 

what program do you use to write this image to USB in windows?

...I don't have an active linux box right now.

 

http://www.winimage.com/

Anyone know how to build an lpia kernel?

 

hmmmm, I already tried that without success. Did you actually use this method?

I open the program and open the .img file, but it never gives me an option to write to disk.

 

This post is in response to a few questions I've recieved regarding the "NOT using sqashfs..." error on boot. To fix the error simply do the following:

1) Open a terminal by pressing Alt-F2 and typing in "gnome-terminal" without the quotes.
2) Type in the command "ls /dev/disk/by-uuid -alh" without quotes and you will recieve something similar to the following output:

Code:

total 0
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root  60 2008-11-20 20:22 .
drwxr-xr-x 5 root root 100 2008-11-20 20:22 ..
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root  10 2008-11-20 20:22 fade4b97-6ba4-43f5-b831-631479aac39a -> ../../sda1

The long string of characters on the last line is your UUID and is where we want to tell grub to look when booting. (Note: yours will almost certainly be different from mind so don't cut and past from this post.)

3) In terminal type "sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst" and look for the line that says:

Code:

# kopt=root=ro boot=disk

Edit the line using your own UUID to look similar to the following:

Code:

# kopt=root=UUID=fade4b97-6ba4-43f5-b831-631479aac39a ro

4) Save the file, exit gedit, and in terminal issue the command "sudo update-grub". This will update any kernel listings in grub with your UUID information.

I also edited my /etc/fstab file to reflect the changes however I'm not certain if this is entirely necassary. If you decided to, open up your fstab file by typing "sudo gedit /etc/fstab" in terminal and edit it to look similar to the following, again with your own UUID information."

Code:

# <file system> <mount point> 	<type> 	<options> 	<dump> 	<pass>
proc		/proc		proc	defaults	0 	0
#/dev/sda1
UUID=fade4b97-6ba4-43f5-b831-631479aac39a /	ext3	noatime,nodiratime,errors=remount-ro 0 	  1

That should do it. Reboot and the error should be gone and your boot time should be improved by at least 3 seconds.

If any of these instructions are unclear or incorrect please contact me and I will update the post to make any necassary corrections.

 

Heya,

I downloaded the UNR and burnt it with nero...put it in my external drive...told the aspire to boot that external dvd drive first...and it skips it and goes to windows...

so I am guessing you can only boot it via USB? Anyone else have any thoughts with this? I need to get a big enough usb if this is so...

Thanks,

::rayman::

 

If you have Ubuntu there is an application in the repositories-

usb-imagewriter

which writes the image to your usb-stick.

 

I too would very much like to know this. With the ability to compile a new kernel and ALSA, and could get sound,mic etc completely working after suspend/resume. As in this thread
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=7090

however, the development tools needed are not available for lpia are they?

 

You should run the fix for the Fan control as that will fix it quickly. I had no issues getting the lan to work, by following that Ubuntu 8.04 setup.

I only appiled the following fixes to the rc.local:

Fan control
Lights
Kill swtich

I also rebuilt the sound as suggest, just to ensure it work perfected.

No issues, better then anythig out there.

Also it's a lot better then the regular 8.04 as it's using the LPA kernal for Atom processors.

Also note that you might have issue with Open Office 3.0 but just to the dpkg --force-arcituture as it's still i386, but it think it's kernel as alien.

Meh works better then any opearting system I found.

Install size was less then 2.0GB which was way less then Linpus. I've had no issues installing or updating packages.

 

In what way is it "better" ?

I have been running the Ubuntu-UMPC image with Netbook Remix and I am trying to work out what benefit I might get from switching to the UNR1.01 image.

 

I'd say battery life, for one. I've not done any formal testing but according to powertop my power usage has decreased and battery life has increased by over an hour. I can only imagine it's due to the Atom optimized kernel.

 

Atom optimized kernel is like butter. I've haven't had to configure the wireless, everything install and runs fast. Battery life on 3-cell been almost 4 hours

Very happy with the menu too, it's a killer. I used all week, starting to like there menu more than any GUI in the past for a desktop lol.

 

After reading all the good stories about UNR, I decided to give it a spin myself. However, I'm not really that positive as some other people seem to be:

• Audio isn't working after suspend[/*:m:2q351nym]
• Wifi is very spotty, and drops all of the time[/*:m:2q351nym]
• Cardreaders only work when booted with one installed[/*:m:2q351nym]
• Firefox keeps eating 100% CPU [/*:m:2q351nym]
• a lot of software seems to be missing. There's no qsynaptics, for example. There's gsynaptics, but it doesn't offer all the options qsynaptics has[/*:m:2q351nym]

Any ideas about how to adress these? Especially the crummy wifi is bothering me..

Edit: Manually installing madwifi, as described in https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne#WIRELESS seems to help. A lot

 

Sounds like it's worth a try for battery life alone.

Does the image offer the option of a LiveUSB session or is the only choice a disk install ?

 

Install only at this point. Keep in mind this release is still in it's infancy. There are many ways to back up your entire harddrive (very easy if you have the 8gb version) if you want to revert back to your current setup. Search around on ubuntuforums or google for how-to's.

 

Thanks for the response. Back-up isn't really the issue; I am already doing this regularly. I just find the LiveUSB approach the most efficient way to rapidly try out a new distribution/image. I am already decided to got the Netbook Remix route but I still have many questions about the UNR1.01 way of doing it compared to other ways.

 

MPlayer seems to be broken too... not very impressive

 

I'm not certain if anyone else noticed but setting concurrency=shell in /etc/init.d/rc causes hal to fail to initialize. I reported the bug and fix here: https://bugs.launchpad.net/netbook-remix/+bug/299637

To sum things up it's a problem similar to what users experienced in Gutsy where the starting order of hal is affected. A good place to start it seems to be right after dbus. Open a terminal and issue the following commands to reorder when hal starts and then set concurrency=shell. Let me know if it improves your boot time.

Code:

sudo mv /etc/rc2.d/S24hal /etc/rc2.d/S13hal
sudo mv /etc/rc3.d/S24hal /etc/rc3.d/S13hal
sudo mv /etc/rc4.d/S24hal /etc/rc4.d/S13hal
sudo mv /etc/rc5.d/S24hal /etc/rc5.d/S13hal