Hands on with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix
Wednesday June 25, 2008 – 1:31 am
I'm trying this out on my Eee PC...
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July 2nd, 2008 at 2:13 pm
Edith, Have you had problems with wifi & sound? Are you using the EEE 900?
I’ve been thinking of making the switch from Xandros to some ubuntu variant, but keep on reading about horror stories getting everything working!
July 2nd, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Well, hmmmph. I tried out a bunch of varieties trying to find one where every single piece of hardware worked properly even after suspend. That’s my main priority. I don’t care so much about the eye candy, whether it’s an Easy Mode-ish interface or a regular desktop, I just want the hardware to work and I want it to keep working after suspend. Anyway none of them worked 100% right even after all the script-tweaking I could find. Close, but not perfect. All the hardware works on all the distros provide you’re on a clean restart, but it’s the suspend that screws everything up. I do have the 900 model btw.
My favorite distro that I tried is eeebuntu in the Netbook Remix flavor, with the 900 scripts applied. That one worked pretty well, except the easy interface thing would freeze up after suspend. But you could kill that process, and your normal desktop would be underneath and you could continue as normal. I think if they solve that problem I’ll probably make that one my distro. At the moment I’m back on normal Xandros, choosing between Easy Mode and advanced desktop. I used emeditor to add a bunch of icons to Easy Mode, so that’s more tolerable now. And it’s just so fast, even a full reboot takes less time than just starting up a full desktop in Ubuntu.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:21 pm
Thanks for the tips–I pretty much have the same requirements. My other computers all have various Ubuntu variants. I’m actually liking Xandros (advanced desktop)–if the repositories were kept up to date it would work fine for me.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:30 pm
Yeah it pisses me off that I can’t run Firefox 3 with the gtk they give you. I know it can be done and I have done it, but it’s a pain and very crashy. So I will leave in a heartbeat if they could iron out the few problems w/ eeebuntu. I’m a little worried now that they’re releasing all these new machines, I hope they still keep working on distros for the 900! OTOH I’ve also heard rumor that they might be moving the whole shebang to a new distro other than Xandros, what was it? Not Ubuntu. Plain Debian maybe.
July 2nd, 2008 at 3:35 pm
(…then we could have the best of both worlds: Asus hardware gadgets that really work, plus access to the updates we crave, and a bazillion new apps that we can’t get in Xandros-land…)
July 2nd, 2008 at 4:30 pm
Yeah, actually I think there is also a Debian eee distro–folks on the IRC channel recommended it. I haven’t played with it yet.