What's wrong with Linpus? Why change?

Uncrippling it takes about 20 seconds...

Did you actually find out how to use Add/Remove programs? Because being a programmer my machine's loadout is probably much more non-standard than yours and I haven't had to do anything but select items off a menu, with the exception of installing VLC.

Acer slipped up here. But installing a new OS because its "easier" than installing VLC (what with its four lines of cut and paste typing) strikes me as bizarre.

As a professional Windows programmer... Hell no! Windows is a resource hog. It's just not suited for Netbooks, especially SSD machines. The responsiveness and speed I'm getting out of a 512/8GB Linux machine would be impossible under Windows. And now MS have announced plans to cripple future Netbook OS's to make people keep on spending the big bucks on laptops. Acer could and should have put more effort into their custom Linux though.

 

I concur, and while we're on the topic of Windows programming, I've recently been put as a programmer (C in Windows, no prior experience, huge codebase) what do you use as your development environment?

Windows XP is ok as a netbook OS, but I wouldn't choose it. I stated earlier that I would try Win7, but that's an install on to an external HDD if possible. I aint sacrificing the responsiveness of Linpus at the altar of Ballmer.

 

I'm with you here! I've been surprised that I've been able to do so much with Linpus - and have not yet found a compelling argument to swap it for another Linux OS. Many of the complaints levelled at it seem weak - as if people had decided to get rid of it before they tried it. I'm not trying to say that Linpus is 'all that' - but it does seem to be 'alright'!

Its very fast to boot, unlocking it was a breeze and using the package manager is cool (this is my first Linux experience!) - although I have noticed you don't get the latest versions of the software... Shame about the Fedora 8 repository not being updated any more.

I've had no instability issues and have installed a decent amount of non-package manager stuff scrounged from the web - mainly FPS game engines. Learning and using the CLI is enjoyable, I always kind of missed the feeling of 'control' you used to have using DOS on the PC. So am surprised to hear people complaining about 'too much CLI'.

Also, with all the complaints on the forum about the difficulty of installing Firefox 3 and VLC, I can only assume that many people never noticed that Acer made both of them available as discreet downloads on their udpate site - http://www.acer.com/aspireone/support/files/?

I am worried about the posts that say the automatic updates broke their machines though - along with the reports about not being able to reinstall Linpus using the recovery disk. Also Thunar is rubbish, I would definitely like a better file manager.

It does seem a bit like Linpus is the geeky kid with more potential than people care to give him credit for - but who has been shunned out of hand by the Linux 'cool police'! Evidence of it being too 'locked' or easily 'broken' haven't yet presented themselves to me. But perhaps I shouldn't tempt fate...

 

I noticed these but the VLC doesn't contain the codecs required for Divx and the FF3 has its update function disabled. Had these downloads been complete then there would be far less of a compulsion by many people to change Linpus.

 

Not really. When I say 'personalise' the desktop I didn't mean adding various program Icons, I meant using personal wallpapers or interesting screensavers etc. But thanks for the link anyway. It was kind of you to take the trouble to try and help.

As for step 8, this is exactly the kind of thing that I meant about using Linpus as a novice. XP, for all its faults is point and click. It will tell you what is connected to your network and you just select what you want to join up to and share, same with the network printers. There's even a wizard to help you. I don't want to get involved in some 'command line trickery' as the article puts it. I'm sure to all you Linux experts these are basic command line tools, but the whole point of my netbook was that I wanted it to be simple to use, not have to learn a new language just to connect to a printer!

One of the many reasons that Linux will never challenge the dominance of MS.

BTW, don't get me wrong, I really wanted to get on with Linux and Linpus in particular, I am not a fan of MS but, their product, in the main, just works!

 

De nada. But what you want is even easier. Wallpaper is selectable under Settings, at least in advanced mode. And the default screensaver
will use any images you put in its directory.

..I think Acer's biggest mistake with Linpus was possibly not including searchable help.

...Until it stops working and you're b******d. Trust me, recent updates broke my XP wireless (again) and this time even my skills as a professional programmer can't get it working.

Agreed: Acer should definitely have done something here. Your problem is probably that you don't have the right driver for your printer; I'd mail Acer support with the model number and ask them for the driver.

Or look here:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=linux+ ... =firefox-a

What you are actually seeing here isn't an example of Windows inherent superiority but a scale effect: the printer works with Windows because the maker gave you a driver or gave MS one to ship with Windows. *If* Linux gets more popular then printer makers will take more care of Linux users. I suspect that Netbooks and NetTops together with strong Linux uptake in developing countries might give Linux that sort of user base. I'm not a Linux fan in general, but I'm amazed by what the OS can do with Netbook hardware. The future is computers with about the clout of current base model A1Ls (plus probably 3G, bluetooth, and increased battery life) but costing about $100, and Linux is a good fit for it.

 

#

The latest model of Visual Studio available, preferably using C# for GUI work. You're really using C, not even C++? Are you still working with legacy MFC or raw Windows API???

If this is your first job get copies of "Code Complete", "Wrtiing Solid Code", and DeMarco's "Death March" and read them as quickly as possible. And write your code around unit tests. ***And get memory leak detection tools***. And learn a scripting language like Ruby for writing tools - it should only take you a day to get a reasonable level of Ruby and its about 4x as productive as C. Awk is even quicker to learn and better for simple text scanning, which might be helpful with a large codebase, but runs out of grunt for complex problems.

Oh - and always wear your protective leather and asbestos overalls while programming - those steam powered Babbages can be deadly when the stack overflows. (C!!!??? On Windows, the only saving grace of which is .NET? Seriously, which Windows API are you using? If it's an old one, you're not doing your career any favours.)

 

Yes, but with my XP machine I can select any image as a wallpaper can Linpus do that? (sorry I don't have my A150 with me so can't check!). Also, is this for the basic, Acer, desktop or the other one that can, apparently, be obtained by entering a load of CL stuff?

As for screensaver...I had noticed the photos one, but is that it? no fancy pattern generators or nowt?

I agree with what you are saying re Linux fit with small systems, however, one of the further problems with Linux as a whole (and not Linpus this time) is the sheer variety of flavours it comes in. I know people who get confused between XP and Vista so god alone knows how they would cope with the sheer numbers of varieties all sailing under the Linux flag. Each one different to the other. Each one needing a different version of VLC or FF or whatever. This will certainly limit its uptake by the mass market.

MS, for all its problems, does make things a lot simpler for the non-technophile.

The other thing that I find most amusing is reading some of the other threads on trying different versions of Linux on the One. People saying 'I loaded (insert flavour of linux here) version (insert version of flavour here) and it's great. The only thing that doesn't work is the card reader/wifi/speaker/webcam/etc. (delete as applicable)'. Can you imagine the furore these same people would create if Windows did this? Just amuses me thats all.

 

To get Advanced Mode you enter one command. Once. Which you cut and paste. If I'd have been interface lead on the One, I'd have made it easier, but that's not bad. You can set any image as wallpaper under Desktop Settings in Advanced Mode *or* by opening it in Firefox and using Fox's right click menu on the image. But I have no idea why shouldn't be able to do it the obvious way in Basic Mode, via Display Settings.

Those would be applications that you download in Advanced Mode. An 8GB machine shouldn't come loaded with cruft. (That said, there are several pattern generators under Settings.)

That is an absolutely excellent point. The main distros should agree a standard for drivers that would work for all of them and which would come with an approval sticker manufacturers could use. Acer and Asus should have played a big role here but didn't. They should also have come up with a Netbook interface as compelling for its hardware as the iPhone has. A few hundred thousand spent on software development could have generated massive rewards. The small screen *needs* ballistic scrolling, windows that can be set to expand on hover and shrink when they lose focus (think how much easier using gimp would be) and a decent file manager instead of the awful Thunar (Norse for the "The Freezer", I believe).

Absolutely. Except when it doesn't, as with the problems with Vista.

I don't have to imagine this. I know people who bought Vista.

But you're still right. What's needed here is much more objective factual reporting on distros - what worked, what didn't, what could be fixed, what spec machine was used to test, how much memory was used with no apps running, with Fox and Writer running, what experiences were of updating and of how long a period this was over. "Cthulhulix is L33T!" isn't really very helpful. Although it would be marvelous if there was a dustro called Cthulhulix...

 

a matter of taste i think.. and too little information..
about ubuntu you have very big forum area where you get help easy

 

I cannot just imagine, I have experienced it often enough. And occasionally, we still experience it. But it is not a fair comparison, is it? If you have a laptop with Windows installed, you probably bought windows with your laptop, specifically tweaked by the manufacturer. If you run Linux on the very same laptop, there often was nu support at all from the manufacturer. So if just a Winmodem refuses to function, it is running great. Speaking of Winmodems, some hardware is designed to be non-functional for anything but Windows.

Just like Linpus on the AA1 is specifically tweaked for that machine. So the question if you should replace it is a valid one. And not easily answered, I think. Personally, I have Xubuntu installed on all my machines (even some at work), so Linpus was not something I wanted per se. I did give it a try, but after a two-hour search where I could start a terminal window (in the graphic environment, I had no idea that Linpus would so user-hostile that you'd had to escape to a terminal running on a text-only screen), I gave up and installed Xubuntu. I added some tweaks and installed the SICKBOY kernel and it runs great. It is now about as fast a Linpus was, but leaving me to decide what programs I want to run.

I too think that Linpus was not a smart move by Acer. If Linpus is your first contact with Linux, I can imagine that you want Windows instead. Even Windows CE can do more than Linpus! The shop where I bought the machine warned me when I bought one: "Do you know there is Linux on the device? Many people did return these devices to the shop". I still think it is not necessarily Linux that was wrong. It is Linpus.

I knew how to install Xubuntu onto it, but most people would not. For them, it must be a horrible device.

 

So the best reasons so far to switch from Linpus seem to be -

- Linpus doesn't seem to be keeping up with Fedora, which it is based on, making installing updated and new applications needlessly painful, as they will be written for newer Fedoras

- Installing VLC with decent codecs and an auto-updating Firefox 3 is so much hassle that you might as well install another distro which comes with the right stuff by default

- Other distros offer smoother OS updates

- Acer and Linpus aren't putting much effort into docs, support and upgrades - I haven't even been able to download a detailed Linpus user guide (the link on Acer's site doesn't work) or complete Man Pages (the bible for CLI people)

I will also add tentatively

- Linpus, unusually for a Linux, doesn't have a firewall

- Printer drivers and what have you are probably more available with less hassle for up to date major distros - I'd guess Ubuntu wold be best served of all.

Based on the above and reports on it, I'm going to give Ubuntu Netbook Remix a try. It's professionally tweaked and tested to run on Books including te Acer, the interface has been rethought for the platform, Ubuntu is a first tier distro and the core company is bacing Remix. It wouldn't surprise me to see Acer switch to it as their official distro - they don't seem very interested in Linpus and Remix seems to tick every box they should have.

Links:

Super-detailed review of Remix:
http://www.tuxradar.com/content/ubuntu- ... -904-hands

How-to install by a forum user here:
http://netbook-experience.blogspot.com/

 

..And almost entirely because of a few mistakes that should never have been allowed to happen - hiding Add/Remove programs, being mean with media codecs, not including decent searchable docs, not providing enough desktop customization options in Basic Mode.

Plus they should have added ballistic scrolling!

I loved my HP720 WinCE machine, but it was a lot less capable than my One. You just have to throw that Advanced Mode switch - but Acer didn't tell people how. Which is crazy!

 

This is very true. However, my point is roughly 80% of people using Windows don't know anything about it and most of the time don't need to as it is relatively straightforward to use. I know Linux offers, among its many variants, good interfaces as there is a guy at my work who has been banging on about it for years but, and how should I put this without offending anyone, he is a bit of a nerd (don't think I managed the not offending anyone part!). He gets in about it, he writes his own drivers 'I couldn't do this on Windows' he would crow, but my answer to that would be 'No, but then you wouldn't need to'.

So, as far as it goes, Linux is excellent for the 20% who want to mess about with their systems,but for the 80% that don't, it is still a non-starter.

And, again, I feel I must stress I am NOT a fan of MS or Windows and I really would like Linux to put up a realistic challenge to its dominance, but for a non-nerd like myself it just isn't yet. I will persevere with it though as I agree with pling that it is a better option for netbooks and the Linpus boot time is fantastic.

 

Again, I think I have caused some confusion by not being clear enough (not understanding the Linux lingo methinks). I have got the advanced mode enabled. that was reletively straightforward but, as you have said, could have been even better. What I was meaning was can you apply new wallpapers to the standard Acer desktop, or only to the XCFE (I think its called) desktop?

I could not find any screensavaers in the Fedora repository, is it something I have to search elsewhere for? I agree that you wouldn't want to bog down an 8GB machine with crud but I have a 120GB mean machine, so I want loads of useless, but personal, crud on mine

 

Having watched non-techies use Linux Nebooks, that's not true. You click on app to start it, use the app, click the X to close the app down. This isn't brain surgery! Acer's big mistake was simply hiding the tool for adding new programs, which isn't typical of Linux in general. They should have explained and smoothed out adding apps, not hidden it away. There's a big difference between this one mistake on one distro and the idea that Linux isn't usable in general,
especially as so many apps now are switching to running inside the browser, making their user interface identical on all platforms.

I think the future is going be machines of the One's spec getting ever cheaper and lighter with less power hungry hardware, so that a cheap efficient OS will still be important. More and more apps will run inside the browser. You can already run an office suite there, edit photos, watch movies and play games. Soon their simply won't be a reason to leave - the browser will be the interface for all except a few CLI types, it will boot with the machine, and that will be it. The future is going to be something like a Netbook running Google's "Android", which has a Linux kernel (the engine of an OS) but has an interface more like that of an iPhone than a PC. An important advantage of Linux based OS's is that they can run on very efficient chips like the ARM that make even a Atom CPU seem power hungry.

Ok: I've just googled: this "future" is probably about three months away! See eg

http://www.computerworld.com/action/art ... onomyId=76

- 12 hour battery life, $250 initial price, going lower as volume builds.

So that's the future, and MS can't go there without destroying its existing businesses and writing a new OS. It's much easier for companies who are really good at usability - like Apple and Google - to add a new interface to Linux than it is for MS to change its business model and write an entirely new OS.

 

Just followed that link pling, and I don't get it? $250 is about the same as I paid for my A150 and certainly more than my mate paid for his (£129), and yet these new things seem to have the functionality of a phone. Sometimes you can make things too small to be any good.

Anyway, I think I've really taken this thread off topic so sorry for that.

 

Well -

1. I got that price too, but it was a a special offer. I bet yours was too. In each case we paid less than the production cost - in my case for a NOS machine behind current spec. The $250 price isn't a special offer and can be expected to fall with more production.

2. !!! 12 hour battery life !!!

3. Android was designed for phones, but that doesn't mean that it isn't a powerful OS. The phones in question are futuristic high-end ubertech - PC's in a handset - and the OS is being modded for Netbook use.

 

About the screensaver - I found one in the standard Linpus repository literally by accident - I mis-clicked on it. So they are there. Or at least one is.

 

I'll throw in my two cents.

Linpus was my first taste of Linux. I did find it limited but very much liked the boot speed, small size and overall stability. I figured it was good enough to become my primary traveling PC.

Over the last 6 months I have tried Ubuntu, UNR, Easy Peasy, Mandriva in various configuration with various kernels. I have followed endless posts and applied many patches to make each of them stable. Each time I have returned to Linpus.

If I used my AAO as a toy I would probably settle for the latest UNR, but it does use more "power" and boot time is slow. What I need from a "work" PC:

I need quick boot
functional suspend and resume
hot plug cards
stable audio

Everything you would expect from a laptop...