Wishlist to Acer/linpus

hi everyone,

I got response from Acer or Linpus telling that I should refer my problem to this forum, which I did. In fact, it helped me a lot.

But the point is this is supposed to be Acer's job - giving after sales support to those who willingly bought this device. And us just patting our shoulders enjoying and sharing our experience with this device in the forum.

I know people from acer and linpus would be reading each and every thread in this forum, Hence I would like to propose this wishlist to give this people all the hang-ups we had with this device. (It may actually been answered in this forum but the point is disapointment on acer not acting on this issues.)

mzc

 

Nice initiative

I guess the main one, for me, would be that ACER makes a switch from easy-mode to a standard fully functional fedora8/xfce4 mode easy for the user. As it is now it's not trivial, you can brick your AA1 (not beyond repair, but restoring the system is not fun when you customized it heavily) just by installing or removing the wrong apparently not-essential package, and, all in all, doesn't do neither the AA1-110 nor Linux justice.

 

Are they monitoring this forum? I thought it was a private effort.

If that is the case, hopefully, they're getting the idea that many, if not most, are highly annoyed by:
The default Linpus configuration
The difficulty of upgrading RAM.

I think their purpose in creating that config was to do what it does, make it extremely easy for first time Linux users. Yet, I imagine that a large percentage of their customers are more experienced Linux users, who, even if they bought it as a second machine for travel, or other simple tasks, would strongly prefer a more typical Linux interface.

 

Actually that's very true. I been hooked with linux just this year. It's just like trying to speak a new language, using Windows primarily for convenience and for software that can't run on linux. Hence, a typical Linux OS distro is very appreciated, as an option. Eventually, like what most people did with XP on netbooks (TinyXP, etc), anyone would streamline installed software to satisfy their preference / satisfaction.

Aspire one is a very good device because of its price and features, I think Asus have already started software customization available in its Chinese market. Everyone would appreciate if Acer would start-up their AAone customization site / support site. For the usual pc users that bought this device generally for internet, presentations, email, chat, etc. this site would be great because not everyone really appreciates reinstalling the OS after a failed mod....lol.

 

Straight off the top of my head, there is one big issue with the standard Linpus desktop and one kind of related issue.

1) People are going to want additional applications, particularly Skype and Firefox 3. There needs to be a list of extras that people can easily install and a GUI-level way of adding new icons to the desktop. Ubuntu handles this well with their Add/Remove application - you can see the key applications that are available, what it does, how popular it is, and install with just a few clicks.
2) The majority of owners are also going to have another computer, and probably a Windows one, so connecting to Samba shares needs to be "out of the box", which is trivial using fuse-smb.

If people could easily install Firefox 3 (with flash etc. all working), easily install Skype, and get their network shares and printers working (the latter often requiring "sudo yumo update cups") then I suspect most would be happy.

Those who want the full xfce desktop, or Ubuntu, or any of the many other permutations and going to be taken care of by forums such as this.

Ian

 

I should have added to my main points---an updated NetworkManager with the option for WPA2 corporate connections.

 

I hope they can make a patch for Wacom user.....
a network neighborhood and a easy-customize desktop.

 

To Acer

I would like future netbook components to be more modular, so we can update individual components more easily.

Chowwuikeung.


Now for my letter to Santa Claus....

 

For Linpus Lite:
Please add USB/Serial Support into the default kernel
Please add Citrix ICA Client properly installed.
Please add java, Firefox 3 and recent flash
Please update OpenOffice to 2.4
WPA2 and 802.1x supplicant support

The above is necessary for this to be used reliably as a corporate netbook - The USB/Serial support was the killer for me, I need this to configure switches and routers.

For everything else:
Please work with Canonical on Ubuntu support, especially for sound/mic and the SSD suspend/hibernate issues as all of the above works perfect in Ubuntu, and I can live with 30-40 second start up time if suspend/hibernate work well

 

Here's my wishlist:

1) Update NetworkManager to a more recent version
2) Integrated Bluetooth hardware, and for the current models with no bluetooth, better inbuilt support for USB bluetooth dongles
3) improved crash recovery - my AA1 has had to be reinstalled 3 times due to config corruptions that knock out the keyboard/touchpad or various bits of hardware - when the 'HAL errors' start I know I may soon have to reinstall everything - or delete the config folder before the system starts to play up.
4) In line with #3, allow a Keypress during boot to enter a basic linux command prompt for debugging/fixing etc.
5) One-click backup of entire unit to USB memory stick, LAN folder etc.

FREE FAN REPLACEMENT FOR NOISY FANS

 

My Wishlist:

1. Working bluetooth out of the box. I don't need hardware, as bt-usb-micro-sticks are cheap. I need the software out of the box and an easy way to use a mobile as modem.

2. Working external VGA: Up to now I wasn't able to use my AAO for Presentation. I need a mirrored LVDS with 1280x800, 1024x768 or any other standard used for projection. Messing around with Xorg.conf doesn't solve the Problem.

3. An easy Backup and Recovery-Script from Desktop or Recovery-Stick. Full-Dump is sufficient. An AAO-L is easy to use for a child or Non-Techie, but never backed up.

 

What sort of thing would you like to back up on? External disk? Windows network share? Linux server?

I am sort-of appalled (can you be only `sort-of' applled?) that the One is supplied without even the most rudimentary backup procedure. But it needn't be too difficult to create a backup script that, e.g., copies all files that have changed onto an external USB disk. Something like that, anyway.

I back mine up onto a Linux file server using rsync, the same way I back all my computers up. There are a number of rsync front-ends for people who don't like using the command line -- I'm somewhat surprised that Acer did not include something like that (since rsync itself is included).