http://eee.ricey.co.uk/ eee.ricey.co.uk en-us Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:53:16 GMT 1440 CPG-Nuke Dragonfly eee.ricey.co.uk News http://backend.userland.com/rss http://eee.ricey.co.uk/images/logo.gif http://eee.ricey.co.uk/ http://eee.ricey.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=6 Thursday 24th April 2008 saw the release of Ubuntu (Hardy Heron) 8.04 (and friends). So it was time to get it on my Eee. I had tried to get the Beta to install with little success - I thought getting Hardy onto the Eee would be a nightmare! To my surprise, however, after a little research and the experience of installing Gutsy, Hardy is now fully running on my Eee. Everything works including overclocking. The drivers and tweaks are a little different than Gutsy but the initial install was almost identical. Installing Hardy was a breeze, the only real change in the installer is the disk partitioning part. The 'manual edit' looks the same but it's use is a little different - but easy to follow. To that end I will refer you back to the article I wrote on installing Gutsy (Episode 1) to get you to a running native install. Once you've done that come back here for the fun bits! (One thing I have noticed whilst writing this article and testing with my Eee, sometimes the LiveUSB takes forever to boot, it appears to crash! Just wait and it should come up eventually. See the notes I made at the end about boot times.) So, in Hardy many things work out the box - but what doesn't? I hear you ask! 1. Wireless - the Atheros Drivers required still aren't included in the ubuntu driver package 2. Hotkeys - are still a bit flakey - this is the fault of the ACPI system not being supported 3. Overclocking - needs to be setup 4. Sound - needs tweaking 5. Shutdown - it doesn't properly Therefore the above have to be setup plus getting a better OSD and tweaking gnome a little. Thanks to the efforts of many people over at EeeUser.com and at x20n.de Life has been made rather simpler. Both sites include instructions and scripts to semi-automate the configuration process. I have taken their advice and scripts and compiled my own little version, one that I know works for me and will for you - Hopefully! Before we can move on you need to make sure you have a working Internet connection! Best done by plugging your Eee, with an ethernet cable, straight into your router. This is mainly because we need packages from the Internet and the wireless card is the last thing we are going to configure! So once you're on the net go to your Home Directory and create a temporary folder, give it a name something like EeeInstall - it doesn't really matter but remember what you called it! Now save this file (right click - Save Links As...) into it and open a terminal. In the terminal type: Code:: cd EeeInstall (or whatever you called the folder you created earlier) Code:: ls You should see 1 file called RiceeeyTweak.sh next: Code:: chmod +x RiceeeyTweak.sh That makes the script executable then: Code:: ./RiceeeyTweak.sh Now the script will ask you for your password, type it in and hit enter. Don't panic - lots of stuff will now happen in your terminal window! sit back and watch - it should take about 5-10 minutes to complete. If it does take longer hop onto our forums and ask - with the last few lines of the script's output. If all goes well, and you see the 'Reboot Now' instruction - please do! Once back in test everything to see if it works. Check: Hotkeys The overclock Icon Wi-Fi Sound OSD - the settings are in /etc/asusosd.conf - you can change the OSD placment in there You will also have to comment out the entry for the CDROM in /etc/fstab: Code:: sudo gedit /etc/fstab find the line that contains the reference to CDROM and place a # at the beginning, save and exit. Finally, check that your machine shuts down properly. If all that goes to plan then sit back and enjoy Hardy on your Eee! Life is good! However! - yes there is one. I still had to edit a couple of files manually. First: My SD card that I use for my /home directory didn't unmount correctly. When I booted it would disk check it every time. I had to edit: Code:: sudo gedit /etc/init.d/umountfs and add: Code:: eject /dev/sdb1 toward the bottom of the file just before this last bit Code:: } case "$1" in start) # No-op ;; restart|reload|force-reload) echo "Error: argument '$1' not supported" >&2 exit 3 ;; stop) do_stop ;; *) echo "Usage: $0 start|stop" >&2 exit 3 ;; esac : Secondly: The boot time was rather long. There are issues, apparently, with the kernel boot system that they are working on! I found a workaround that seems to speed things up: Code:: sudo gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst down at the bottom of the file you will see the entries that correspond to your boot menu options. Look through these and wherever you see the word Code:: quiet delete it - we don't want to see that word in any line. There is probably just one entry - looks like this: Code:: kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=(some strange numbers) ro quiet splash it needs to be like this: Code:: kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.24-16-generic root=UUID=(some strange numbers) ro splash save and exit. That's about it - job done. Give your Eee a reboot and again check all the functionality. Once you're happy - go off and start configuring your software. There are some handy little new bits installed and in the repositories. Take a look at Gnome Do and the latest version of Screenlets is great. Go and be Eee! cheers Tue, 29 Apr 2008 20:53:16 GMT http://eee.ricey.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=5 A tutorial for overclocking the ASUS Eee PC. How to Overclock the ASUS Eee PC A good read for those who want it running at 1Ghz, or any speed that's stable. Sat, 12 Apr 2008 11:59:50 GMT http://eee.ricey.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=4 So, where did we leave off? Oh yes - a fresh install of ubuntu on your fab little Eee! Well, you've rebooted and logged into your new desktop, you've had another warning that your battery is broken and are sat looking at the brown desktop. Or, now in my case the black desktop. This is because I've put Linux Mint on this time and will be using this as the example. The instructions are exactly the same because Mint is Ubuntu based and still uses Gnome. So, we're here: (these screenshots are taken via remote desktop for clarity) Right the first thing we really need is a network connection - otherwise things get complicated! Hopefully you connect to the internet via a router and have a spare patch network cable handy. Plug the cable into your router and then into your Eee. Check that the lights on the side of the Eee come to life. This means that the internal wired network card is working. If not, don't panic yet, reboot the Eee with the cable plugged in - hopefully this should kickstart the ethernet into life. If not, then another method of getting the next file across needs to be found - USB stick is easiest. Next we need to get the ubuntu-support script from the very kind benoit.favre at: code.google.com/p/eee-...u-support/ save this file to your desktop or somewhere safe, open the terminal and enter: Code:: tar xzf /(path-to-eee-support-tgz-file)/eee-ubuntu-support_v0.7.tgz this creates a new folder the contents are: open a terminal and enter the following: Code:: cd /(path-to-eee-support-files-directory)/ sudo ./install.sh all enter your password for root permissions then customise Gnome with: Code:: ./tweak-gnome.sh the changes should be apparent! that's about it really, please read the notes here for warnings about Hibernation. Remove the Ethernet cable (if one was in) and reboot your Eee. Once back test the fn keys. fn+f2 should turn on/off the wireless. fn+f6 should toggle the processor speed between 600mhz and 675-900mhz the brightness and volume keys should also work. If you're having problems then re-run the script: Code:: sudo ./install.sh all as above - and/or the Code:: ./tweak-gnome.sh I had to run both at least twice with reboots in between to get the Eee to use the correct drivers. One issue I do have, is that the Gnome notification 'bubbles' tend to disappear after a while - don't know why! But the keys still function nicely. Next we need to tweak the /etc/fstab file to remove the entry that refers to the CDROM. As the Eee doesn't have one, if we don't remove this entry every time you try to insert a SD card your Eee will think it's a CDROM and go 'do what with what?'. We also need to adjust the settings so that the disk isn't 'written to' as much using the 'noatime' option. So, open a terminal and enter: Code:: sudo gedit /etc/fstab Find the entry that refers to /dev/cdrom0 and put a # at the begining to comment it out. and after the options for each entry insert Code:: ,noatime see this for an example: Also in the above example I have set my SD card to mount in a specific place eveytime the Eee boots. As you can see I use the UUID to identify the SD card so the Eee doesn't get confused. To find the UUID of an inserted card, in a terminal enter: Code:: ls -al /dev/disk/by-uuid this is what you should get: pop an entry into /etc/fstab like the one above, using your UUID to make the SD card appear in the same location every time. All that's left is to configure the software that is installed. that is for episode 3! getting a PlayStation 1 emulator! VLC media player and extra bits and pieces! for now, cheers! Tue, 12 Feb 2008 22:40:30 GMT http://eee.ricey.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=3 The Eee PC from ASUS is a remarkable little computer! Again today I had the fortune of installing Ubuntu onto another machine for a friend. That's 3 now including my own. The install process is very simple, I will try, here, to run through what is needed and the steps taken. Firstly we need to choose the version of ubuntu to use. There are 4 mainstream variants. 1. Ubuntu (this used the Gnome window manager) 2. Kubuntu (with the KDE window manager) 3. Xubuntu (this uses XFCE) 4. Fluxbuntu (this uses fluxbox - very minimalist!) I have Kubuntu on mine, the other 2 have straight Ubuntu. The first thing we need is the CD ISO image, these can be downloaded from the sites above. Secondly a USB stick to install from, you'll need at least a 1GB stick for this to work. Ok, let's get the USB stick prepared on your main computer. First we need to make sure that is is formatted as FAT16 or FAT32 and have the boot flag on or it won't work, we also need a small utility called isostick. A great little utility that makes the whole USB stick a bootable device with the Ubuntu ready to go in just one command! Make a temporary directory in your home directory (or wherever you make temporary directories!) and place the .iso file in there. Pop the isostick script in there with it. In a terminal/Konsole change to the directory where the .iso and the isostick files are saved and plug in your USB stick. For a details explanation of creating a bootable USB stick have a look here. For this to work we need to find out where your USB stick has appeared in the file system on the computer. This will be in the /dev directory. Mine comes up as /dev/sdg1. Taking mine as an example and using the latest ubuntu .iso enter the command in the termainal like this: Code:: sudo ./isostick /home/ricey/temp/ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso /dev/sdg1 A few error messages about file permissions will appear but don't worry they're not relevant - it is because FAT doesn't support permissions so an error occurs when we try to use them. After a short wait a 'success' message should appear. Safely remove the USB stick from the computer and we're finished! Wasn't that easy?? Right over to the Eee. With the Eee powered down plug in the USB stick and hit the power button. When the initial ASUS boot screen appears hit the 'ESC' key. This will bring up the boot device select screen. Using the arrow keys select your USB stick from the list and hit enter. The Eee will boot from the stick. Select 'start or install ubuntu' from the list then sit back and watch it boot. After a short while the ubuntu desktop will appear. Have a play of you like and take a look around, but not much of the hardware works right out the box and you will probably get an error message saying the battery is broken! It's not, but we don't have the right drivers in yet! Ok let's get the install under way: As we only have a small screen during the install some of the windows will fall off the bottom of it. Ubuntu comes with desktop effects switched on which stops us moving the windows around fully. Go to: System >> Preferences >> Appearance then to the 'Visual Effects' tab and select 'none' this enables you to move the windows around the screen by pressing ALT+Left Click together and dragging the window about. Now that we will be able to see all the windows we can double click the 'Install' icon. Follow the simple instructions until you get to the disk partitioning part. There are a few theories around as how to partition your 4gb hard drive, but I personally go for simplicity. One large partition and no swap space. Select 'Manual' configuration and delete all the partitions on the first drive - /dev/sda This should then leave 4.0 Gb of free space. Selecting this free space, create a new partition. In the dialogue all we have to enter is the mount point, which will be Code:: / and the file type - I use ext2 - simple and quick filesystem accept those settings and continue. Enter your user details and continue with the install. All in it should take about 15 mins to install the base system. Any messages about not being able to see the security repositories are fine - it's because we have no network connection! Once finished click the button to restart. When prompted to, remove the USB stick and hit enter to shutdown. The Eee will then restart and boot into your shiney new ubuntu install. Next Episode We'll look at setting up the Eee with the right drivers and tweaks to make it fully functional. Cheers. Wed, 30 Jan 2008 20:51:12 GMT http://eee.ricey.co.uk/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=2 from the Asus website: ASUS Introduces All-New Eee PC for Complete Mobile Internet Enjoyment Easy to Learn, Easy to Work, Easy to Play Majority of activities conducted on the laptops today are Internet related. Whether it’s checking emails, reading news, communicating with others or simply utilizing online share spaces, Internet usage has become a big part of the daily computing operations - for both work and fun. To accommodate the increasing total Internet computing demands as well as growing number of users, both young and old, ASUS launches the revolutionary Eee PC to provide users with a new mobile Internet experience like never before. This is a new line of PCs that focuses on providing users with the most comprehensive Internet application based on three Es: Easy to learn, work, play; Excellent Internet experience and Excellent on the go, and hence the product name of Eee PC. Easy to Learn, Work and Play Learn the latest technology without a technical manual! For easy hands-on, the Eee PC offers two modes of intuitive user interface design: the easy mode and the full desktop mode in order to accommodate both experienced and inexperienced PC users. The Eee PC is also Windows XP compatible. Excellent Internet Experience Built-in WLAN connectivity allows users to stay connected for dynamic Internet usage on the go. With the Eee PC empowers users to share photos without waiting till one gets home; connect face to face with just a few clicks; enjoy online entertainment live; stay on top of emails for high work efficiency and more! Excellent Excellent on the go The 7” Eee PC 701 is ultra light with large flash-based storage capacity and built-in webcam for compact mobility with wireless freedom. The special solid-state disc design based on built-in flash-memory gives the Eee PC a great shock-proof advantage over traditional notebook PCs allowing extra flexibility and a worry free experience. Mon, 21 Jan 2008 22:59:28 GMT