UNR 10.04 on Acer Aspire One 532h-2326

I created a USB disk with Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Remix and took my new netbook for a spin.

So far every thing works. In order to boot from the USB disk, plug in the USB key, hit F2 when you turn on the power, and in Setup, arrow over to Boot. then select the USB key you wish to book from by moving it to the top of the list with the F6 key.

So far, it appears most things are working. Wireless was recognized right of the bat, which is a first for me in Linux. The interface for Ubuntu Netbook Remix is nice too! Plus you can change the background, which is not possible in Windows 7 without a third-party work around.

Now the question is, should I wait for the final release of 10.04? Install 9.10? or use the current beta of 10.04 and upgrade later?

What a conundrum!

Ubuntu Netbook Remix on Acer 532H-2326

I got a new netbook today and want to run it with Ubuntu Netbook Remix. The Acer AspireOne 532H-2326 is one of the cool blue ones that come with a 250GB disk drive. I figure I can use Windows 7 on a smaller partition and set aside about 150GB for Ubuntu Netbook Remix 10.04.

The first thing I did was upgrade the netbook to 2 GB of memory. There seems to be a little bit of confusion on the internet about whether these Acer netbooks are upgradeable. Some sites say you need to update the BIOS. The system I have had BIOS V1.02 which seems out of date. I popped in the memory without the BIOS update and it was recognized, and is working great. The memory stick I am using is the following:

Crucial 2GB 256Mx64PC2-5300 CT25664AC667 DDR2 200-Pin SODIMM Laptop Memory

and it cost about $45 Amazon.

This is may first time using Windows 7, and so far it seems pretty nice. It runs pretty good on this little netbook. I also want to keep Windows just in case a BIOS update is needed. It is much easier with Windows installed. Yea, I know about FreeDOS, but for now it is worth it to keep Windows around for a little bit longer.

Upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

I decided to hit the old upgrade button and went from Ubuntu 9.04 to Ubuntu 10.04 Beta. On my machine it was not a smooth transition. If you are using the proprietary Nvidia drivers it would behoove you to uninstall them before you do the upgrade, then reboot to revert to the open source video driver. Then do the upgrade. There is a bug in the current Beta release that will cause the upgrade to fail.

You probably should do this before any upgrade. Anyway, being in a hurry, I neglected to uninstall the proprietary driver and my upgrade stopped in midstream. To get around it, I rebooted and entered into the failsafe graphics mode, reinstalled the proprietary Nvidia driver, rebooted, and the computer seems to be playing nice now. The bug seems to have been reported numerous times on LaunchPad, and will likely get fixed soon.

Other than that, everything seems to be working fine. It will take a while to get used to the buttons on the left side of the screen.

There is a new chat client widget (gwibber) in the notification bar that seems pretty handy. There is a whole bunch of other changes that I still have to look into. It looks like the Software Center has been re-organized, and the Ubuntu One Music Store is also something new. I like it so far...

Ubuntu Buttons: A Simple Solution

I did not press the update button the other day to download and upgrade to Ubuntu 10.04. I decided to wait a while before I do the big upgrade. I'll give it a few more weeks.

I also saw that the maximize, minimize, and close buttons have been shifted over to the left side in the latest release from some screenshots online. This is not a big deal for me. Some Ubuntu users, especially those who are Microsoft converts are complaining loudly about it. Mark Shuttleworth put his foot down and said that this is how it is going to be.

By the way, if you want to move your buttons back the other way, then type this command:

gconftool-2 --set /apps/metacity/general/button_layout --type string "menu:minimize,maximize,close"

Mac converts, what little of them there are to the Ubuntu ranks are probably quite happy. In KDE is it is not a big deal to switch buttons around, it is as easy as opening the preferences window and sliding them where you want them. You can also place them in different order.

For the next Ubuntu release, maybe they should just put the buttons smack dab in the middle. It will appease the Mac users, and the Windows users. Or maybe it will just piss everyone off?

Ubuntu 10.04 Beta Released

I am on the fence about upgrading to the beta release of Ubuntu 10.04. It is easy enough to try, and it is ooh so tempting.

Simply hit alt-F2 on your keyboard and type: update-manager -d in the pop-up window, and then you are presented with the upgrade option. I have the Update Manager window sitting before me with the magical upgrade button sitting before me this very minute. Ubuntu 9.10 has been running great so far with nary a glitch of hang. The desktop also looks very sweet with Bisigi themes displayed.

Should I press it??

An Interesting Blog Post about Linux

I came across an interesting blog post called "Why Linux Still Sucks", and I have to say that on some fronts I agree with what Adrian is saying. Things have not changed much with Linux usage, and desktops in recent years. GNOME is still GNOME, and KDE, well KDE took a step backwards with its 4.0 release. As far as the gaming, OEM support, and hardware issues listed in his post, there is still little support from larger companies catering to the Linux crowd.

Earlier today Ubuntu released some screenshot images of Ubuntu 10.04. The images do not look too bad. Most people do not stay with the default theme anyway because the brown theme that Ubuntu had wall a little too poopy. Maybe users will now keep the default theme. It is starting to look suspiciously like a Mac desktop....

Ubuntu 10.04 to Support iPhone and iPod

According to a couple of websites I have come across, Ubuntu 10.04 will support mounting of iPhone and iPod devices. You are able to browse the files on the device using either Nautilus or RhythmBox. However,

I am not sure if this will get many users flocking to use Ubuntu 10.04, but it is great news for the desktop operating system, and for Linux users, too. It will certainly give Ubuntu more leverage in the desktop market.

But, I have and iPod, but never really gave much thought to using it with my Linux box, mainly because it has such a seamless integration with the iTunes software.

The nagging question is: Will Apple allow this continue? Or will they issue a firmware "upgrade" to take care of this little problem.