[BB]

As per the title!

The windows 7 beta on my acer aspire one is about to expire and I'm going to take the plunge and put a linux distro on it. The question is which one?!

My initial though was just to stick ubuntu on it, but then I found that there are loads of variants and I have absolutely no idea which one is most appropriate!

The Netbook remix seemed a sensible option, but apparently doesn't enjoy the same level of support as the vanilla ubuntu.

What's the gen? What do I need to know and what are the options? I'm very IT literate when it comes to M$ Operating systems, but have no prior linux experience, so go easy on the spod/fanboi jargon.

[Tris]

Slackers pointed me towards a base install of EEEbuntu for my netbook which I have to say I like a lot...

[slackline]

I had problems with the default wireless network manager (imaginatively named NetworkManager) under Eeebuntu.

A bit of rummaging turned up an Ubuntu based variant thats tailored to the Acer Aspire One in the form of Kuki which uses the wicd application for network management and has been more stable.

Don't be afraid to try a few out though, download the ISO's and depending on whether you're using a USB optical drive or using a USB stick to install either burn them to disc or try them out in turn from the USB stick.

Post if you have questions, although I don't actually have the Aspire One myself (passed it onto a friend). (Not in office tomorrow though).

[BB]

Cheers,

The list so far consists of Ubuntu (UNR) and Kuki. If you had problems with the network manager, I don't think I'll attempt it as a linux n00b, so will discount Eeebuntu.

Do I need to worry about the versions of ubuntu? 9.10 appears to be the latest, but lots of the variants are based on 8.04. I normally opt for the latest version of everything, but I heard rumblings of some problems with the latest version of ubuntu.

[Tris]

I prefer Kubuntu 8.04 which uses KDE 3.5 as the interface is the most similar to Windows (Start menu at bottom left).



After KDE went to v4.x in later releases of Kubuntu, the interface was different...

What are you actually going to be doing on your netbook? Just surfing or other shizzle too?

[slackline]

What we're talking about here is Desktop Environments (DE)...

KDE is (IMO) bloated and with too many gimcky cartoony icons etc.

GNOME is (also IMO) bloated, but looks nicer/slicker

Xfce4 is lightweight and nice and slick.


Ignore the differences between Ubuntu (GNOME) /Kubuntu (KDE) / Xubuntu (Xfce) they all have the same under the hood but use a different DE.

Because netbooks aren't the most powerful things in the world both Eeebuntu (I think) and definitely Kuki are both built on Xubuntu and therefore use Xfce as the default Desktop Environment so as not to unnecessarily waste resources.

UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remixed) probably uses NetworkManager (not checked though) so you may want to check and knock it off the list if so.
 

[Tris]

If you want something extreme lightweight and not wasting any resources what about something like Puppy or Pupeee 4.2 which I use at home from a flash stick, it's like 100mb and boots in about 40 secs. It runs entirely in memory (RAM) and flies...

[BB]

What are you actually going to be doing on your netbook? Just surfing or other shizzle too?

Video editing and CAD work, obviously!

It travels with me when I go on hols, so watching movies on the plane, web browsing and email when i get there + viewing the photos I take. Currently under windows 7 it has problems playing the HD video I shoot with my flipcam. It's very jerky, so if I could get it to play 720p video smoothly, that would be a massive plus.

What we're talking about here is Desktop Environments (DE)...

KDE is (IMO) bloated and with too many gimcky cartoony icons etc.

GNOME is (also IMO) bloated, but looks nicer/slicker

Xfce4 is lightweight and nice and slick.


Ignore the differences between Ubuntu (GNOME) /Kubuntu (KDE) / Xubuntu (Xfce) they all have the same under the hood but use a different DE.

Because netbooks aren't the most powerful things in the world both Eeebuntu (I think) and definitely Kuki are both built on Xubuntu and therefore use Xfce as the default Desktop Environment so as not to unnecessarily waste resources.

UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remixed) probably uses NetworkManager (not checked though) so you may want to check and knock it off the list if so.
 

It's starting to sounds like Kuki is the way to go. Obviously I can play around with the DE.

[Johnny Brown]

The windows 7 beta on my acer aspire one is about to expire

Any idea when? Not had any warnings about mine yet....

[cofe]

You're not on 8 yet?

[Jim]

i'm on 10

[slackline]

It's starting to sounds like Kuki is the way to go. Obviously I can play around with the DE.

You can indeed play around with the DE and if for example you installed Kuki and wanted to try out KDE instead of the defaul Xfce you can install it and when logging in choose which desktop environment you want to try (an even more lightweight option than Xfce is Fluxbox).

I'd take the following approach...

1. Back up everything to an external HD

2. Choose a distro to try first (it matters not which)

3. Install the distro, when it comes to the bit about partitioning your drive, make an additional partition for /home/ (this is where all your data will be stored if/when you copy it back).

4. Finish the install, and reboot into Linux from the laptops HD.

5. Connect the external HD and copy everything over to your /home/[username]/ partition.

The advantage of this is if you decide you don't like a particular distribution or its just not working is that you can the install another without wiping your data which is stored on a separate partition (providing of course you don't destroy it when re-installing, so probably best to keep the data on the external HD as a backup until you're happy with a given distribution).

[slackline]

You're not on 8 yet?

i'm on 10

Distro versions, so passé.

[slackline]

Have had a little play with Moblin (booting from a thumb drive) on my NC10. Any opinions on this slackers?

http://moblin.org

No, sorry not tried it.  Had a quick look at the Architecture Overview though and it seems to be aiming at getting the hardware all working smoothly (which often varies widely, even between supposedly the same model*) for others to then build more specific distros on top of it.

* I got a Dell Latitue X300 and had a nightmare getting wireless working 'cause the guide I was following was written by someone who had the same laptop, but the wireless chipset was iwl2200 (Intel) whilst mine was a b34 (Broadcom).

[Tris]

BB - I give you one week using Linux and trying to get CAD/video editing software working before you are back in the land of Microsoft

[slackline]

BB - I give you one week using Linux and trying to get CAD/video editing software working before you are back in the land of Microsoft

I think there was perhaps a touch of sarcasm (which for once I detected!) in suggesting a netbook would be used for CAD and serious video editing.  Besides which there is always VirtualBox.

[Tris]

Besides which there is always VirtualBox.

What are you on about? You would never run a virtual setup on a netbook, it just doesn't have the power to cope. Either dual boot or commit to using just one OS.

[slackline]

Besides which there is always VirtualBox.

What are you on about? You would never run a virtual setup on a netbook, it just doesn't have the power to cope. Either dual boot or commit to using just one OS.

But then a netbook wouldn't have the power to cope with serious CAD/video editing in the first place irrespective of the amount of sarcasm ladden in BB's usage OS.

[BB]

BB - I give you one week using Linux and trying to get CAD/video editing software working before you are back in the land of Microsoft

I think there was perhaps a touch of sarcasm (which for once I detected!) in suggesting a netbook would be used for CAD and serious video editing.  Besides which there is always VirtualBox.

Correct. Slightly geeky sarcasm admittedly.

I installed Kuki last night and I have to say that the install was completely painless. Sadly, I can't say the same about the user experience. My windows-centric brain can't get used to a new way of doing things and I'm struggling in a few key areas.

1) Installing stuff - ok, i go to add/remove because double-clicking on a downloaded installer is no longer an option. The trouble is that I can't figure out where the OS is getting the installable options from! Is it a standard list that downloads from the web when you tick them? Are they preloaded and just need ticking in order to unpack? VLC and firefox being examples. What do you do if they aren't in the list?

2) Network shares. Using the file manager included with the DE, I can't figure out how to connect to a network share on my NAS - grrrrrr!

3) the keyboard setup is wrong and it took ages to find the backslash in order to confirm that I can't get to my nas by typing \\nas\public into the address bar of the filemanager. How can i sort it out?!

I'm sure there are more, but those are the most pressing ones.

[slackline]

I installed Kuki last night and I have to say that the install was completely painless. Sadly, I can't say the same about the user experience. My windows-centric brain can't get used to a new way of doing things and I'm struggling in a few key areas.

1) Installing stuff - ok, i go to add/remove because double-clicking on a downloaded installer is no longer an option. The trouble is that I can't figure out where the OS is getting the installable options from! Is it a standard list that downloads from the web when you tick them? Are they preloaded and just need ticking in order to unpack? VLC and firefox being examples. What do you do if they aren't in the list?

The package manager (that you've succesfully found) is called Synaptics.  Ubuntu based distributions are binary in nature, so someone at Ubuntu HQ compiles the programs into binaries and makes the available in the repositories.  However, Ubuntu don't make all of the packages available, some people maintain their own repositories.  All you need to do is tell your package manager which repositories you want to have available to you.  See this this article on how to add repositories.

You can use this search tool to check which repository a given package is in.  For example it lists vlc as being in Universe for the Karmic release.

A popular repository that I didn't see listed in the above pages is the Medibuntu for multimedia stuff.

2) Network shares. Using the file manager included with the DE, I can't figure out how to connect to a network share on my NAS - grrrrrr!

This will depend on how your NAS is making the network shares available.  Almost invariably your NAS will be running a customised version of Linux and as such will likely be exporting the file system as NFS shares (or possibly CIFS).  Eitherway you'll need to install NFS tools on your new install.  The package you want to install via Synaptics is 'nfs-common'.

3) the keyboard setup is wrong and it took ages to find the backslash in order to confirm that I can't get to my nas by typing \\nas\public into the address bar of the filemanager. How can i sort it out?!

To start with you delimit directories under Linux with '/' and not '\'.

Setting your keyboard map is usually one of the early steps during the installation.

There are potentially lots of different ways you can modify the keyboard layout (this is because the system is modular and you can modify it at a base level, or at the X-windowing level) but perhaps the easiest is to look under the Settings menu for the keyboard option and see if its there.

Failing that, I'd search through the Ubuntu forums for a solution (worth registering there anyway, as you'll find its an invaluable resource as many people will have asked the same questions you are likely to, and you'll find there are many people who will help you out when you can't find the answer you seek).

I'm sure there are more, but those are the most pressing ones.

I'm sure there will, feel free to ask, but also use the forums and official documentation and remember that you can usually find an answer with  (and more specifically Linux specific search.

[BB]

Cheers Slackers, much appreciated.

One more thing. I had a notification that I should update to the latest version of Ubuntu. Should I? Will it upset all the AAO customisations in Kuki?

[slackline]

Cheers Slackers, much appreciated.

Delayed response as I didn't clock your post, but no problems, always happy to help with Linux shit 

One more thing. I had a notification that I should update to the latest version of Ubuntu. Should I? Will it upset all the AAO customisations in Kuki?

Now this is one of the minor nuances of using a distribution based on another (and its worth bearing in mind that Ubuntu itself is based on the Debian distribution!!!).

Versions* of Linux distributions are simply where they say, "Right we're going to use Xfce4.6.3.2.1 and VLC-1.2.0.34-rc5 and Xorg-1.7.4.3.4.1.2" basically they get a recentish set of packages and make sure they all play ball and work together.

The most recent Ubuntu release (codename Karmic) got some bad press 'cause they hadn't checked things properly, but these have supposedly all been ironed out, so in theory upgrading shouldn't be a problem (besides which one major pain in the arse was the stabilisation of KDE4 and since Kuki uses Xfce4 instead you shouldn't have any of these hassles).

The choice is ultimiately yours, but what you could do as this is an earlyish stage of install/usage is let it upgrade, and if things are borked then do a quick re-install.


* This is in contrast to source base distributions such as Gentoo, Linux From Scratch or Arch Linux where the latest versions of each package are available for install at all times and there is no such thing as versions for the distribution (I use Gentoo myself and have done for a number of years).

[Paul B]

Personally after my experiences with Linux I wouldn't be sticking any distro on something I wanted to use on holiday. If something breaks who wants to spend the time sifting through forums to get it fixed?
My main gripe was with Network manager which was a ball ache.

Win 7 will be going onto mine when I find a big enough usb drive laying around.

[Paul B]

By the way, you said somewhere you wanted your aspire to play 720p vids...

Isn't this impossible with a graphics card that has a max res of 1024 x 600 or does your aspire one have something better in it?

[slackline]

If something breaks who wants to spend the time sifting through forums to get it fixed?

  

(had a few troubles with the wieless on my laptop when I first moved to Australia, got it sorted easily enough though, but then I knew what I was doing and how to solve it).

My main gripe was with Network manager which was a ball ache.

Generally not the best and superseded by wicd these days.