I installed Mandriva 2009 onto an SD card, booting from an Asus EeePC 701. It takes over 2 minutes to boot to the desktop & is simply unusable on such a small screen. The panel is way too huge & if you try to reduce it, the tray icons get screwed up. The Folder view thing is really stupid & the widgets provided are totally useless. I moved it to full sized 13' laptop & gave it my usual runover.
So basically, KDE 4.1 is still pretty much useless as an everyday desktop. Nice to play with, but not something you want to use daily. I think Mandriva made a bad move moving to KDE4 so soon. Especially when they have not put too much effort into making it work well. OpenSuse at least managed to make KDE4 somewhat usable, so Mandriva has no excuse. They really should have offered KDE3.5 on the One CD. If they wanted people to test out KDE4, then they should have release 3 versions of the One CD.
1. KDE 3.5
2. KDE 4.1
3. Gnome
Removing KDE 3.5 is a very bad move. Even PCLinuxOS 2009 will come with KDE 3.5 as default because it simply works better.
I won't be upgrading to Mandriva 2009 at all. I'd wait for 2009.1 & see how that goes. For now, Mandriva 2008.1 is an extremely good release & I suspect will remain so for some time until KDE4 reaches feature parity with (at least) Gnome.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Dell Inspiron Mini 9 with Ubuntu Mobile Edition
I got my hands on a brand new Dell Inspiron Mini 9 a few weeks ago & couldn't wait to test out the pre-loaded Ubuntu on it. What it came with surprised me somewhat & it certainly will surprise anyone expecting it to be the stock Ubuntu with some minor Dell tweaks.
The Ubuntu pre-loaded was very far from the standard Desktop edition. It is actually a heavily customized version of Ubuntu Mobile Edition (ume).
What does that mean exactly? It does not use standard Ubuntu packages, all the packages are compiled for the Low Power Intel Architecture (lpia). This also means that it does not utilize the standard Ubuntu repositories for packages. Dell provides a custom repository for updates & software. This means adding any 3rd party Ubuntu repositories is not possible. This is not a big issue as the Dell repository proved to be quite complete in providing all the packages I usually use.
The advantage you gain from using ume is the incredible speed. From power button press to a fully loaded desktop took just under 40 seconds. The desktop was also very responsive & application performance was great. The battery life is also quite good at about 3 hrs 20 mins. (in comparison, my EeePC 701 running Eeebuntu Netbook Edition took over 70 seconds to boot & only managed 2 hrs 40 mins despite having double the capacity)
Dell has designed a nice looking 'Easy Mode' style interface to run on their desktop. It's surprisingly customizable & looks awesome with it's flowing animated transitions. This is nice, but may annoy those who prefer a more traditional Ubuntu desktop. So they have thoughtfully provided an easy way to switch back to the standard desktop.
There are a few other notes that I'll simply list out:
- It uses a squashed root. Which reduced the footprint to just over 2GB.
- Compiz has been removed completely. It's not even possible to install it. (trust me, this is a good thing)
- Fluendo Codecs & Codeina provides for all your media playback needs. Java & Flash pre-installed.
- Incredibly good Bluetooth support. Even works perfectly with A2DP headsets.
- The 8GB SSD version I got certainly isn't enough for me. Invest in a 16GB Class 6 SDHC card.
- The SSD is pretty slow at 15Mbps write. Checkout RunCore's SSD for an upgrade.
Finally, what do I think about the Dell Inspiron Mini 9? Recommended. But I'd wait for the 32GB version. ;)
The Ubuntu pre-loaded was very far from the standard Desktop edition. It is actually a heavily customized version of Ubuntu Mobile Edition (ume).
What does that mean exactly? It does not use standard Ubuntu packages, all the packages are compiled for the Low Power Intel Architecture (lpia). This also means that it does not utilize the standard Ubuntu repositories for packages. Dell provides a custom repository for updates & software. This means adding any 3rd party Ubuntu repositories is not possible. This is not a big issue as the Dell repository proved to be quite complete in providing all the packages I usually use.
The advantage you gain from using ume is the incredible speed. From power button press to a fully loaded desktop took just under 40 seconds. The desktop was also very responsive & application performance was great. The battery life is also quite good at about 3 hrs 20 mins. (in comparison, my EeePC 701 running Eeebuntu Netbook Edition took over 70 seconds to boot & only managed 2 hrs 40 mins despite having double the capacity)
Dell has designed a nice looking 'Easy Mode' style interface to run on their desktop. It's surprisingly customizable & looks awesome with it's flowing animated transitions. This is nice, but may annoy those who prefer a more traditional Ubuntu desktop. So they have thoughtfully provided an easy way to switch back to the standard desktop.
There are a few other notes that I'll simply list out:
- It uses a squashed root. Which reduced the footprint to just over 2GB.
- Compiz has been removed completely. It's not even possible to install it. (trust me, this is a good thing)
- Fluendo Codecs & Codeina provides for all your media playback needs. Java & Flash pre-installed.
- Incredibly good Bluetooth support. Even works perfectly with A2DP headsets.
- The 8GB SSD version I got certainly isn't enough for me. Invest in a 16GB Class 6 SDHC card.
- The SSD is pretty slow at 15Mbps write. Checkout RunCore's SSD for an upgrade.
Finally, what do I think about the Dell Inspiron Mini 9? Recommended. But I'd wait for the 32GB version. ;)
Sunday, September 7, 2008
CPU Frequency Scaling on the EeePC
If like me, you are thinking about extending the EeePC's battery life by turning on CPU frequency scaling support, I can tell u now to forget about it. It doesn't work.
After turning it on & testing the temperature & battery life, I am very sure it does absolutely nothing for the EeePC. In fact, the only thing it did was make the system lag every time you click on something, this is because the CPU will scale to max for almost every single task. The system takes a second to scale, this is what causes the lag.
After reading in various forums & opinions on it, it's clear that frequency scaling does not improve the battery life or thermal performance of the EeePC 701 which uses an already sluggish Celeron M. In some tests, it even makes things hotter.
So, I've reverted to running the system at the standard 630Mhz with no scaling. I'm currently averaging about 170 minutes per charge with wireless on, which is not too shabby for an 8 month old battery.
After turning it on & testing the temperature & battery life, I am very sure it does absolutely nothing for the EeePC. In fact, the only thing it did was make the system lag every time you click on something, this is because the CPU will scale to max for almost every single task. The system takes a second to scale, this is what causes the lag.
After reading in various forums & opinions on it, it's clear that frequency scaling does not improve the battery life or thermal performance of the EeePC 701 which uses an already sluggish Celeron M. In some tests, it even makes things hotter.
So, I've reverted to running the system at the standard 630Mhz with no scaling. I'm currently averaging about 170 minutes per charge with wireless on, which is not too shabby for an 8 month old battery.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Tweaking eeebuntu
I've been running eeebuntu on my EeePC for a week now & I've done quite a few things to improve the overall experience.
Here's a quick list of things (that I can remember) in no particular order:
- Disable unused services. User services-admin to weed out all the pointless services such as: anacron, atd, apport, lm-sensors, avahi-daemon & cupsys.
- Disable unused startup items. Under System -> Preferences -> Sessions, turn off, Conduit, Evolution Alarm Notifier, Print Queue Applet, Update Notifier & Visual Assistance.
- Install much needed games. Get yourself zsnes, armagetron, planet-penguin racer, crack-attack, circus, pinball & wormux.
- Run sudo apt-get clean after every update.
- Remove unnecessary panel applets. cpu meter, temp meter & window picker (window list is more practical)
- Install lock-keys-applet to display the status of numlock, capslock & scrolllock.
- Fix the Fn+ key volume control. Goto System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts. Press Backspace to remove the shortcut for Volume up, down & mute. This leaves only asusosd running & supplying only 1 set of controls. The volume being adjusted is Front, so set gnome mixer's primary volume to it.
- Setup some ramdisks to reduce disk writes. Add these entries in /etc/fstab
tmpfs /var/log tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=0755 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
- To reduce some more writes. Add in the mount options for / in fstab "noatime, nodiratime, commit=30". Like this:
#/dev/sda1
UUID=xxxxxxx-xxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxx / ext3 noatime,nodiratime,commit=30,errors=remount-ro 0 1
You'll need to do the same in /boot/grub/menu.lst.
On the line "defoptions=quiet splash" line add "rootflags=noatime,nodiratime,commit=30" Like this:
defoptions=quiet splash rootflags=noatime,nodiratime,commit=30
Then run $sudo update-grub.
- If you don't mind losing all your browser cache every boot, you can do this put all your disk cache in ramdisk:
Open firefox
Goto about:config
Look for "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory"
If it's not there, create it (type string) & set it to "/tmp"
- Optimize the boot readahead cache by reprofiling. Here's how to do it:
Setup the system in exactly the way you want it before doing this.
Press Esc at grub
Edit the kernel line & insert "profile" at end. (without quotes of course)
Press b to boot
Let the system boot normally to the desktop. (It will take much longer)
Once completely booted, do a reboot. (The next boot will be quicker than ever)
Next I'll be experimenting with cpu frequency scaling to improve battery life. I'm still apprehensive about this since this machine is slow as it is. But I'll test it out & we'll see.
Here's a quick list of things (that I can remember) in no particular order:
- Disable unused services. User services-admin to weed out all the pointless services such as: anacron, atd, apport, lm-sensors, avahi-daemon & cupsys.
- Disable unused startup items. Under System -> Preferences -> Sessions, turn off, Conduit, Evolution Alarm Notifier, Print Queue Applet, Update Notifier & Visual Assistance.
- Install much needed games. Get yourself zsnes, armagetron, planet-penguin racer, crack-attack, circus, pinball & wormux.
- Run sudo apt-get clean after every update.
- Remove unnecessary panel applets. cpu meter, temp meter & window picker (window list is more practical)
- Install lock-keys-applet to display the status of numlock, capslock & scrolllock.
- Fix the Fn+ key volume control. Goto System -> Preferences -> Keyboard Shortcuts. Press Backspace to remove the shortcut for Volume up, down & mute. This leaves only asusosd running & supplying only 1 set of controls. The volume being adjusted is Front, so set gnome mixer's primary volume to it.
- Setup some ramdisks to reduce disk writes. Add these entries in /etc/fstab
tmpfs /var/log tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=0755 0 0
tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs defaults,noatime,mode=1777 0 0
- To reduce some more writes. Add in the mount options for / in fstab "noatime, nodiratime, commit=30". Like this:
#/dev/sda1
UUID=xxxxxxx-xxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxxxxxxxxxx / ext3 noatime,nodiratime,commit=30,errors=remount-ro 0 1
You'll need to do the same in /boot/grub/menu.lst.
On the line "defoptions=quiet splash" line add "rootflags=noatime,nodiratime,commit=30" Like this:
defoptions=quiet splash rootflags=noatime,nodiratime,commit=30
Then run $sudo update-grub.
- If you don't mind losing all your browser cache every boot, you can do this put all your disk cache in ramdisk:
Open firefox
Goto about:config
Look for "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory"
If it's not there, create it (type string) & set it to "/tmp"
- Optimize the boot readahead cache by reprofiling. Here's how to do it:
Setup the system in exactly the way you want it before doing this.
Press Esc at grub
Edit the kernel line & insert "profile" at end. (without quotes of course)
Press b to boot
Let the system boot normally to the desktop. (It will take much longer)
Once completely booted, do a reboot. (The next boot will be quicker than ever)
Next I'll be experimenting with cpu frequency scaling to improve battery life. I'm still apprehensive about this since this machine is slow as it is. But I'll test it out & we'll see.
Thursday, August 21, 2008
eeebuntu Netbook Remix on the EeePC 701
A few days ago I decided to install eeebuntu permanently into the SSD of my EeePC, I've been running it live off a USB stick & increasingly found it far superior & far more flexible then the Xandros that came with the system. As u can see, I'm cautious about this step as I want to make sure that eeebuntu could effectively replace the Xandros. In this respect, I think the eeebuntu folks did a really great job.
As I increasingly discovered, Xandros did not afford me much flexibility & was in fact not performing well at all on my modest EeePC 701 4G. In operation, eeebuntu was much more responsive due to (I suspect) it's realtime kernel. The drawback though is obviously the boot speed, which I timed at about 1min 9seconds, this was far longer than the 34 seconds it took Xandros to boot. But compromises had to be made if you wanted a modern OS. eeebuntu is based on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.1.
I'm going to try to detail my experience installing eeebuntu 1.0 NBR (Netbook Remix):
(Check out eeebuntu's Homepage)
- Installation went well without a hitch.
- Post Install, run the sndfix701.sh script in /eeesupport/scripts
- Sound should work fine now, but be careful when adjusting the volume with the Fn+hotkeys, for some reason it adjusts both Master & Front volumes. Adjusting it with the normal volume control works fine. For this I found that by setting the master channel to PCM (instead of Master) helped the volume control become smoother (still doesn't help the hotkeys issue though). In the volume options, I recommend to only enable these items: Headphone, PCM, Front, Microphone & Capture. Set Master & Front to the max & control all volume using only PCM.
- Due to a bug in the installer, the custom repositories used are not in the installed system. This is easy to remedy, simply boot the LiveUSB again, copy out the last 3 entries from /etc/apt/sources.list & put them into the installed system.
- The default ume-launcher has some issues of overlapping text on the 701. After updating to the new ume-launcher, the issue is resolved.
- SD cards will not mount because the system thinks they are optical drives. This is solved by commenting out the /dev/cdrom0 line in /etc/fstab
- I use zsnes to get my doses of old console games. zsnes will start with no sound at first, this is resolved by setting the sound sampling rate to 48000Hz & restarting zsnes with the parameters $ zsnes -ad sdl
Next time, I'll talk about optimizing the OS to boot faster, run faster & write less to the SSD.
As I increasingly discovered, Xandros did not afford me much flexibility & was in fact not performing well at all on my modest EeePC 701 4G. In operation, eeebuntu was much more responsive due to (I suspect) it's realtime kernel. The drawback though is obviously the boot speed, which I timed at about 1min 9seconds, this was far longer than the 34 seconds it took Xandros to boot. But compromises had to be made if you wanted a modern OS. eeebuntu is based on Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.1.
I'm going to try to detail my experience installing eeebuntu 1.0 NBR (Netbook Remix):
(Check out eeebuntu's Homepage)
- Installation went well without a hitch.
- Post Install, run the sndfix701.sh script in /eeesupport/scripts
- Sound should work fine now, but be careful when adjusting the volume with the Fn+hotkeys, for some reason it adjusts both Master & Front volumes. Adjusting it with the normal volume control works fine. For this I found that by setting the master channel to PCM (instead of Master) helped the volume control become smoother (still doesn't help the hotkeys issue though). In the volume options, I recommend to only enable these items: Headphone, PCM, Front, Microphone & Capture. Set Master & Front to the max & control all volume using only PCM.
- Due to a bug in the installer, the custom repositories used are not in the installed system. This is easy to remedy, simply boot the LiveUSB again, copy out the last 3 entries from /etc/apt/sources.list & put them into the installed system.
- The default ume-launcher has some issues of overlapping text on the 701. After updating to the new ume-launcher, the issue is resolved.
- SD cards will not mount because the system thinks they are optical drives. This is solved by commenting out the /dev/cdrom0 line in /etc/fstab
- I use zsnes to get my doses of old console games. zsnes will start with no sound at first, this is resolved by setting the sound sampling rate to 48000Hz & restarting zsnes with the parameters $ zsnes -ad sdl
Next time, I'll talk about optimizing the OS to boot faster, run faster & write less to the SSD.
Saturday, June 14, 2008
How's Mandy so far?
Been running Mandriva 2008.1 Spring Free for well over a month now, there have been many updates coming through rpmdrake. Most of the obvious bugs were ironed out by the 2nd week, so things are looking good. Here are some random observations:
- I figured out how to disable the annoying meta file download in rpmdrake.
- I found out that compiz works much better with EXA rather then XAA on my intel chip.
- I discovered that Flashplayer will crash Firefox every 2nd youtube video I watched. I later found out this is because Flashplayer 9 is not playing nice with PulseAudio. I have since disabled PulseAudio so I can watch youtube. I'm a freedom hater. I know.
I've had very little chance to hack around & get to know this new Mandriva release. This is in part because of my current work schedule, but it's also because Mandriva & Linux in general has matured to a stage where it almost requires no hacking to make everything work well. Linux is getting to a stage where it could almost just get out the way & let you use the computer. I feel as if a tipping point is near & I'm almost afraid to see what's over the horizon...
- I figured out how to disable the annoying meta file download in rpmdrake.
- I found out that compiz works much better with EXA rather then XAA on my intel chip.
- I discovered that Flashplayer will crash Firefox every 2nd youtube video I watched. I later found out this is because Flashplayer 9 is not playing nice with PulseAudio. I have since disabled PulseAudio so I can watch youtube. I'm a freedom hater. I know.
I've had very little chance to hack around & get to know this new Mandriva release. This is in part because of my current work schedule, but it's also because Mandriva & Linux in general has matured to a stage where it almost requires no hacking to make everything work well. Linux is getting to a stage where it could almost just get out the way & let you use the computer. I feel as if a tipping point is near & I'm almost afraid to see what's over the horizon...
Thursday, May 1, 2008
Finally upgraded to Mandriva 2008.1 Spring Free
I finally did it today! Got around to backing up all my data & installing a fresh copy of 2008.1 Spring Free.
Just started to play with it a little & already I managed to kill Konqueror once. (by dragging files around)
It's ok, I'm installing Dolphin anyway.
Lets start with some first impressions:
- Multimedia keys on me Tosh are working perfectly, it even has the much needed OSD.
- Rpmdrake has been improved tremendously in speed & reliability, downloading & setting up repos automatically. However, I don't like the behavior of it downloading the info headers every time I click on a package. On my slow line, this takes a good 2 minutes per click.
Haven't had any time to play more with it. So I'll save any more comments till my next post.
Just started to play with it a little & already I managed to kill Konqueror once. (by dragging files around)
It's ok, I'm installing Dolphin anyway.
Lets start with some first impressions:
- Multimedia keys on me Tosh are working perfectly, it even has the much needed OSD.
- Rpmdrake has been improved tremendously in speed & reliability, downloading & setting up repos automatically. However, I don't like the behavior of it downloading the info headers every time I click on a package. On my slow line, this takes a good 2 minutes per click.
Haven't had any time to play more with it. So I'll save any more comments till my next post.
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