In my previous post I told you of my experience with an Aspire One running Linpus Linux. After tooling around with that disaster I offered my colleague two options, either I install Ubuntu or he gets someone else to install Windows XP.

To my joy he told me to go ahead and install Ubuntu on it.

So, off to Ubuntu land for this little laptop, err netbook.

Installing

Installing Netbook Remix is a little more involved than installing “normal” Ubuntu. In the end I used an old IDE harddrive with a USB connector kit. I had to DD the Ubuntu Image to the drive. Yep, Netbook Remix does not come as an ISO file, it is an IMG file that cannot be mounted, it works fine from an external harddrive or usb dongle though.

It boots into a live environment, and you can install it as usual. The hard part is getting the image onto the drive.

First Boot

Netbook Remix is “proper” Ubuntu with a user (and touchscreen) friendly menu system that basically replaces the normal desktop. You can switch to a desktop like you have with Gnome, but the better option for me was the Netbook environment.

The Netbook environment is nifty, and icons are animated when you click on them. They are also nice and big, so you can safely use it with a small touch-screen device.

It works!

Netbook remix is a much nicer match for the Aspire One than Linpus is. Networking works as you would expect from Ubuntu – yes even 3g. It never worked reliably on Linpus. Minor niggles are the wifi-card light not working, the right-hand USB ports not hot-pluggable in some cases and some models with suspend/resume issues.

Suspend/Resume worked well in my case, and I fixed the wifi light by installing jaunty-backports.

Summary

The inclusion of a e-book reader – with rotatable page-views no less – and all the reliability that comes with Ubuntu really makes it the more senible choise on the Aspire One. If Acer decides to make it their default install on the Linux versions of this Netbook I bet the minor niggles will be fixed in no time at all. A downside is that booting takes about three-times as long as with Linpus, but I would take the extra boot time any day above the headache that is Linpus.

Install Netbook Remix – get the most out of your netbook!

No related posts.