Damn computers!

[N2CHX]

I have two netbooks, both Acer Aspire Ones. One is an 10751h and the other is a smaller 532h. I prefer the 751 because it has a bit bigger screen and keyboard. It has Ubuntu on it.

The 532 only has Windows on it and I use it pretty much only for accessing my real estate mls site which requires windows and IE.

Anyway, the latest "upgrades" to Ubuntu and Flash made it so video was ungodly slow and loading of any flash on a website caused the CPU to load to 100%. Tried a lot of crap to fix it, to no avail. I decided to upgrade to Ubuntu 9.10 from 9.04 and see if that fixed anything, as it got so bad it was practically unusable anyway. 9.10 worked great except no sound. So I decided to further upgrade to 10.04. Big mistake. Now the damn thing is hosed.

I could probably fix it but I decided to try a new distro. Something NOT Ubuntu based. Trying Arch linux now. Already tried Debian but it's got issues. Arch has an Acer Inspire Network edition that's supposed to have everything working out of the box. The biggest problem with the 751 is the weird 1366x768 widescreen display and the quirky GMA500 video driver. Love these little Acers but sometimes getting stuff to work on them is a pain. I can't complain too much though, I've had the 751 for a year now and it worked flawlessly this entire time until a few days ago. But right now I am smashing my box (that's the equivalent of you guys tearing your hair out) trying to get this fixed.

[n2ize]

Try Fedora. But remember, if you are going to keep current you are going to be involved in a rapid upgrade cycle.

[N2CHX]

Try Fedora. But remember, if you are going to keep current you are going to be involved in a rapid upgrade cycle.

I usually do keep up with upgrades but in this case, all the documentation available for the 751 indicated that Ubuntu 9.04 was the only distro known to be able to work correctly on it. So I purposely held back upgrading for an entire year, which is very unusual for me. Usually I apply upgrades immediately.

[w6tmi]

I think by upgrades he means, fedora versions have a 6 month turnover cycle, so at a relatively quick point you have to upgrade the whole thing, as the yum updated don't support older versions.

But they do pretty much have the latest, greatest everything.

[KC2UGV]

Kelli, you should be fine with 10.04. I have Ubuntu 10.04 on my Acer netbook. BTW, try either Xubuntu, or the Netbook remix.

BTW, what's hosed?

[N2CHX]

I think by upgrades he means, fedora versions have a 6 month turnover cycle, so at a relatively quick point you have to upgrade the whole thing, as the yum updated don't support older versions.

But they do pretty much have the latest, greatest everything.

Cool, thank you. I'm trying different distros to see what I like. A long time ago I used Fedora and it was good then.

[N2CHX]

Kelli, you should be fine with 10.04. I have Ubuntu 10.04 on my Acer netbook. BTW, try either Xubuntu, or the Netbook remix.

BTW, what's hosed?

Video. It hosed so bad I can't even get it to drop to a tty login. I could go in and edit the xorg.conf or whatever needs to be changed, but I have the feeling after what I've read, that other things won't work anyway. My A0751h with the GMA500 is a really quirky beast.

[W2NAP]

i use ubuntu 10.04 on the server. but vector linux KDE3 on the tower... me likes vector

[KC2UGV]

Video. It hosed so bad I can't even get it to drop to a tty login. I could go in and edit the xorg.conf or whatever needs to be changed, but I have the feeling after what I've read, that other things won't work anyway. My A0751h with the GMA500 is a really quirky beast.

Ok, I think I know what had happened. I've got the same issue on my Packet computer. 10.04, no video. At all. Nada. I had to back down to 9.04

[KC2UGV]

Oh, and for the alternative linux: CentOS. The stability of an enterprise distro, without the price tag.

[N2CHX]

Ok, I think I know what had happened. I've got the same issue on my Packet computer. 10.04, no video. At all. Nada. I had to back down to 9.04

It's the stupid GMA500 Poulsbo chipset. I've now tried Debian, Arch, Linux Mint 9, Fedora, Ubuntu 9.10 (wouldn't install correctly, gonna try it again) and a plethora of patches to fix the video. All of them hose the machine. I'm about done with it. If another go at 9.10 fails, I'm going to sell the thing cheap and just install it on this machine that doesn't have that ugly GMA500 chipset in it.

[W3WN]

It's the stupid GMA500 Poulsbo chipset. I've now tried Debian, Arch, Linux Mint 9, Fedora, Ubuntu 9.10 (wouldn't install correctly, gonna try it again) and a plethora of patches to fix the video. All of them hose the machine. I'm about done with it. If another go at 9.10 fails, I'm going to sell the thing cheap and just install it on this machine that doesn't have that ugly GMA500 chipset in it.
How cheap?

Little Miss Field Day wants a laptop...

[ad4mg]

It's the stupid GMA500 Poulsbo chipset. I've now tried Debian, Arch, Linux Mint 9, Fedora, Ubuntu 9.10 (wouldn't install correctly, gonna try it again) and a plethora of patches to fix the video. All of them hose the machine. I'm about done with it. If another go at 9.10 fails, I'm going to sell the thing cheap and just install it on this machine that doesn't have that ugly GMA500 chipset in it.
That's your best bet, Kelli. Look at this image, detailing Ubuntu support for that chipset ... and note video playback on versions after 9.10:

3442

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCardsPoulsbo/

[KA5PIU]

Hello.

Ubuntu works fine on the Dell Vostro a90 (Mini9).
Of course this is perhaps the most popular flash based netbook on the planet for hackers.
It can also run any flavor of Windows down to Windows 1.0 and DOS 3.x
Yes, there are hard coded IRQ and DMA. ;)
Since it is so popular there are hundreds of people perfecting code for it.
In fact the very first netbook distro released was for this very machine.
So what I am saying is this.
Find a users group for your machine and ask questions if they have not already been asked (FAQ).

[N2CHX]

That's your best bet, Kelli. Look at this image, detailing Ubuntu support for that chipset ... and note video playback on versions after 9.10:

3442

https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCardsPoulsbo/

I saw that chart before, but then I saw someone else post that they got 10.1 working completely. 9.10 failed again, so for the heck of it I tried 10.1. Now, upgrading from 9.10 to 10.10 was what broke it completely the first time so I was skeptical. To my surprise, Wifi, sound and everything except video settings worked from the start. I had one dependency problem associated with upgrades but that was easily fixed. So I tried the Poulsbo driver installation and it worked! Full acceleration and video works fine. So once again, everything is working and the problem with choppy video and crashing Flash is fixed as well. Let's see... I started this project almost exactly 24 hours ago.

[N2CHX]

I demand a lot from my machines. I write, I surf, I write software. I run Apache, PHP, MySQL, FTP server, proxy/cache and other services in the background and I usually have a lot of things running in the foreground at the same time. I usually spend quite a bit of time tweaking my system to get it performing the way I want it to. I'm really liking 10.1. It's performing quite well right out of the, um.... box.

[n6hcm]

Cool, thank you. I'm trying different distros to see what I like. A long time ago I used Fedora and it was good then.

still is ... it's used to feed red hat enterprise linux (centos, scientific linux, ...). not nearly as polished as centos or ubuntu.

have you tried booting off a trial ubuntu distribution on a memory stick? this could help you figure out if the installation on your hd is just hosed, or whether it lies with ubuntu ...

[n2ize]

Why not simply use Windows on that particular machine if Linux is not supported on it ?

[KA5PIU]

Why not simply use Windows on that particular machine if Linux is not supported on it ?

Hello.

Why not run out and buy an ice pick for a frontal lobotomy?
I hear that the effects are just about the same. ;)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lobotomy

[ad4mg]

Why not simply use Windows on that particular machine if Linux is not supported on it ?
Friends don't let friends drive Windoze. Why dedicate 40% of your system resources to fighting viruses, malware, and trojans, oh, my!? :-D

I fought video issues on my Acer laptop for weeks before I got it ironed out. Honestly, the 64 bit AMD architecture of that machine ran pretty crummy on the 32 bit version of XP Home supplied with it. It runs fantastic under Ubuntu 10.04, 64 bit!

[N2CHX]

still is ... it's used to feed red hat enterprise linux (centos, scientific linux, ...). not nearly as polished as centos or ubuntu.

have you tried booting off a trial ubuntu distribution on a memory stick? this could help you figure out if the installation on your hd is just hosed, or whether it lies with ubuntu ...

:) See two posts above yours. I got it working. Posting from it now. It actually runs better than I ever remember it running before.

[N2CHX]

Why not simply use Windows on that particular machine if Linux is not supported on it ?

Well, I got it working for one... I knew it was possible to get it to work, just not easily. I don't give up that easily. And I already have a netbook running Windows. I don't like Windows, I prefer Linux. All the tools I am familiar with are in Linux. If I installed all the services in Windows that I run on Linux, I'd have about 10% of my resources left.

This is why I said that if I couldn't get Linux to work on this netbook, I was going to sell it cheap to someone who wanted to put Windows back on it. It came with Vista on it, which lasted about 30 minutes after I brought it home a year ago.

I don't even like writing on a Windows machine. Call it a quirk or a mental illness or whatever, but I do a LOT of writing and I feel at ease doing it on a Linux machine but I can't get comfortable writing in Windows. I quickly get writers block and nothing gets done.

[n2ize]

Well, I got it working for one... I knew it was possible to get it to work, just not easily. I don't give up that easily. And I already have a netbook running Windows. I don't like Windows, I prefer Linux. All the tools I am familiar with are in Linux. If I installed all the services in Windows that I run on Linux, I'd have about 10% of my resources left.

This is why I said that if I couldn't get Linux to work on this netbook, I was going to sell it cheap to someone who wanted to put Windows back on it. It came with Vista on it, which lasted about 30 minutes after I brought it home a year ago.

I don't even like writing on a Windows machine. Call it a quirk or a mental illness or whatever, but I do a LOT of writing and I feel at ease doing it on a Linux machine but I can't get comfortable writing in Windows. I quickly get writers block and nothing gets done.

I can't write directly onto a computer. I have to do everything with a paper and pen and then type it in to the computer. Most of the stuff I write that ends up on the computer is mathematical. Therefore it is mandatory that I have LaTeX installed since it has a powerful math package. Since most Linux distros come bundled with TeX / LaTeX it is more convenient for me to use Linux than Windows. Plus, most Linux distros come bundled with lots of editors, compilers and Interpereters, i.e. gcc, C, C++, Assembly, Lisp, etc. which come in very handy from time to time. In short right out of the box Linux lends itself to a professional / academic lifestyle than Windows. For me that's a good thing.

Also, i just generally can;t seem to get comfortable with windows. Even if I'm doing multimedia I prefer to use Linux or BSD as opposed to Winders.

[n6hcm]

Most of the stuff I write that ends up on the computer is mathematical. Therefore it is mandatory that I have LaTeX installed since it has a powerful math package.

i've always wondered how people do this with windows ... is there some add-on for ms word? when i worked at mit pretty much every student thesis was produced with LaTeX (which is not pronounced the way you'd expect) ...

[W7XF]

I do just fine without Windoze!! It's called Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

[NQ6U]

I do just fine without Windoze!! It's called Mac OS X Snow Leopard.

Same here. And since OS X is a fully POSIX-compliant OS, it runs TeX and LaTeX just fine.

[n2ize]

i've always wondered how people do this with windows ... is there some add-on for ms word? when i worked at mit pretty much every student thesis was produced with LaTeX (which is not pronounced the way you'd expect) ...

Well for starters there is stuff like this...

http://faculty.smu.edu/barr/latex/

Supposedly there are also some LaTeX to Word converters.

But I am not familiar with any of them. I always found it easier just to work with LaTeX directly on a Linux or Unix system.

I use a program called "mimetex" to convert LaTeX code into images that are embedded in blog and forum postings. This way using the appropriated markup tag , i.e. [latex] or <latex> one can embed a formula or other symbols into their blog or forum posts.