A Small Report, Episode VI

Wow, those three months really flew by! As I mentioned in my previous post, I've really been swamped with work. Thankfully, things are starting to be a bit sensible again--I still tend to do project related work more than 100% of my work week (meaning some overtime almost every week, and not really any time for anything else, such as courses and certifications) but at least there are now more people sharing the burden, so I no longer have that only you can save the universe feeling of doom hanging over me. (Yeah OK, so it wasn't really like that, but it sure did feel like it at times.) I actually managed to take out one week vacation time and went abroad for that time, although who knows when I will get the remainder, really?

So, being busy and all, I haven't had much time to do anything spectacular. Whenever I've had an entire evening to myself, I've tried to watch a movie, and I also have watched a fair amount. I've read a few books (mostly by Stephen King), ordered and read the twelve issue collection of the Lucifer comic book, and ordered the ten issue collection of Neil Gaiman's Sandman (going to order Endless Nights soon) and read most of them (for the second time; I read them all a few years back). But mostly I've been working.

Oh, and...

Xubuntu on Acer Aspire One

... I've installed Xubuntu 9.04 on my AAO almost as soon as it was available. I first installed and tested the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, but although I liked the use of the desktop (menus and buttons, similar but better than Linpus Lite) I didn't like it as a whole, because:

• Windows were (at least by default) always maximized. Some apps got pretty screwed up as a result.
• Innovative as the task bar was, it still used up screen estate in a dimension that already is very limited (600 pixels).
• The My Computer bar (on the right of the desktop, which contained a list of all disks in the system) got very crowded when there were many disks connected at the same time (not a typical problem, I know, but still).
• It felt somewhat unresponsive.
• No alternative installation disk, so you didn't get as many installation options as with the normal distros.

So then I tried Xubuntu, by means of the alternative installation CD. After some tweaking (using LVM, encrypted partitions) I got it mostly as I wanted it. Again, 8GB seems plenty (but more would be useful--more on that below). Xubuntu (Xfce) offers a different navigation system than Windows/normal Ubuntu (and active by default in Xubuntu, too): You can right-click on the desktop and the Program Menu pops up right there and then. This means that you do not really need the task bar to host a Start Button, although you can still have it if you want to. This allowed me to minimize the use of the task bar(s): I only use one, and set it to be rather thin. It hosts a clock, a Show Desktop shortcut button and some other system tray applications (sound mixer, network, battery status). Since none of those are things that I really need to have visible all the time, I also activated auto-hide for the task bar, meaning that it slides down to show just 1-2 pixels or so whenever the cursor isn't on top of it. I additionally installed Launchy, so I can start programs with a few keystrokes even when the desktop isn't visible (and I thus can't bring up the Xfce menu), and Alt-Tab cycles windows, so it's all good. After decreasing the system font you don't really have a problem with the screen being just 1024x600, except when some programs (and some web pages) insist on demanding a larger screen. Most of the time, though, you tend to forget that you're just using a netbook and not a full laptop.

The good (as opposed to Linpus Lite):

• Passwords! Yes, you can set up your system to require login (as it should do). This also allows multiple user accounts, obviously, something that might have been possible with Linpus Lite but that I never got around to checking.
• Encryption. Yes, I realize it might be overkill, but I encrypted parts of the system. I prefer not having to worry about someone reading my e-mails and combing my browser cache for passwords etc. if the AAO were to be stolen... and let's face it, it's small enough that anyone can hide it on their person.
• Built-in Firewall. I can't tell you how much this means to me, but consider my previous rants on the subject, maybe you have an idea. Install Iptables-frontend of your choice and you're ready to go (I went with Firestarter because I've used it before, although it might not be the best alternative).
• A huge repository of software to install.

The bad (in out-of-the-box Xubuntu):

• The Wireless won't work (at least not well) on networks with hidden SSIDs. While not a show-stopper for me, it might be for some. You can force a connection (might take a few attempts, though) to a SSID that is not being broadcast, but I experienced complete computer freeze a few times when doing so. Hidden SSIDs seem to have worked in the past, so it is a bit unfortunate that something has broken this functionality.
• The card readers work varyingly well. The left-hand reader (SSD Expansion Slot) acts as a normal reader (hot-pluggable, ejectable), while the right-hand reader, which only allows a card to be inserted about half-way, only notices cards that are present at boot and does not allow them to be ejected. So they pretty much work exactly opposite the way they are supposed to!
• Even with the alternative install CD, I could not use the right-hand reader and the inserted 16GB SD card when creating partitions. Afterwards, it is also problematic to add it to LVM, and I have yet not managed to do so, as I worry it might screw up an otherwise fully functional system and am therefore somewhat unwilling to experiment. (If anyone has good ideas on how to do this, please do tell.)

The so-so:

• The boot speed is slower than Linpus Lite, but still fast enough that it shouldn't be an issue.
• Some of the shotcut keys don't work. In particular, I can't adjust the volume with them. The keys fire off reasonable events, though (xev to the rescue), so it should be possible to fix this.
• The volume level is dropped between sessions (set to 0% and disabled), which is annoying but not fatal in any way. Presumably also fixable.
• The built-in camera might or might not work. I haven't tried it in Skype, but I could not easily use it as a TWAIN source, at least. Still, I don't have much use of a low-res (and presumably low quality) webcam, so meh.
• You need to tweak various minor things if you want them to work. For instance, presumably you need to apt-install something to get the wireless leds to work.

I should also point out that the AAO (Flash-based) SSD is... well, rather slow at times. At times, the computer seems to partially freeze, but it comes out of it eventually. This happened with both Linpus Lite and Xubuntu, so it seems like a hardware issue. (Of course, the encryption I run on some partitions probably also slows the system down somewhat.) It's nothing critical, but still somewhat distracting when the computer is partially unresponsive for half a minute at a time. Heavy disk usage can also slow the system down to a crawl (such as opening lots and lots of tabs in Firefox all at once), but the partial freezes can happen at any time... although evidently not as a result of reading from a USB thumb drive. :-(

But other than that, I'm very happy with Xubuntu on AAO, I'm happy with the AAO, and I recommend the combination to anyone that wants a cheap netbook.