Jonathan's blog

For some time now I’ve been running Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix on my EeePC 901. I’ve been very impressed with it.

Today I was prompted to upgrade to the new version, 9.10. On my connection at work (via Janet) the upgrade didn’t take long at all…

Upgrade Screenshot

After 9 minutes of frenzied downloading, the upgrade itself took around an hour and a half. Afterwards, I rebooted. I like what they’ve done with the UI!

Ubuntu Screenshot

The roll-over animations make it look and feel nice and polished to use. They’ve also paid close attention to certain aspects of the interface, such as the package manager. It’s a breeze to configure the system.

One notable new addition is Ubuntu One, a free cloud storage service. I have no need for it, as I have my own server, but it’s a handy feature for most people.

Most of the stuff is the same old. Most things work the same as they used to, so it takes no time at all to find your way around the new version.

Well done Ubuntu!

Sometimes you need to change the log verbosity of wpa_supplicant for debugging purposes. First check which log verbosity you are currently running with.

ps -ef | grep wpa_supplicant | grep -v grep

-d represents verbose
-dd represents extra verbose

To change the log verbosity, edit /usr/share/dbus-1/system-services/fi.epitest.hostap.WPASupplicant.service and add -d or -dd as appropriate. Example:

[D-BUS Service]
Name=fi.epitest.hostap.WPASupplicant
Exec=/sbin/wpa_supplicant -u -d -f /var/log/wpa_supplicant.log
User=root

Restart NetworkManager and run the check again to see which log verbosity you are running with.

For those of you who read my earlier post, Ubuntu Netbook Remix on an EeePC 701, you’ll know that I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) on my other half’s EeePC 701. The clue is very much in the name.

Initially I was sceptical of using it myself. I’m a Red Hat / CentOS / Fedora fan. All my home machines are Fedora; my work PC is Fedora and all the servers I look after are CentOS. My own EeePC 901 was, until yesterday, running Fedora too. I had no real gripes about Fedora on my 901, except the boot time, which was acceptable but slightly slow.

But after seeing how well thought-out UNR is, I was tempted to give it a shot. Despite being a Red Hat fan, I eventually decided that I didn’t actually use my 901 for anything Red Hat specific – basically I use it as a web browser, email client, MSN/AIM client and ssh terminal. So I’m not tied to any particular OS at all.

Installation from a Live USB was a breeze. My 901 has a so-called 20GB SSD, which is actually a 4GB SSD and a 16GB SSD. I’ve also added a 16GB SDHC card. In the end I set up my partitioning like:

• 4GB SSD: /var
• 16GB SSD: /boot, /

• 16GB SDHC: /home

In short, this gives me 16GB for the OS, and 16GB for my stuff. This is a pretty healthy amount for a netbook, and more than I’m likely to use in a hurry.

So what are my first thoughts on this Debian-based OS that I’m supposed to hate?

Well, it’s pretty good. The first thing I notice is how polished everything is. The login screen, the custom menu, the theme… UNR looks like a saleable OS. The UNR custom menu looks smart and is easy to use on a netbook screen – 9″ in my case, and 7″ in Hana’s.

I was able to configure my installation the way I like it without using a terminal. Of course, the terminal is there if I want it but I think this distro marks a new era – a Linux distribution that can be installed, configured and used without the user having to use the terminal. I’ve already said that my non-geek girlfriend Hana is using UNR and finds it great. I’d also be happy to recommend it to other non-technical users.

Well done Ubuntu!

This morning I tried Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) for the first time. My first impression was that it’s very polished and usable by non-geeks.

I’m not an Ubuntu user myself; I use Fedora on all my machines – including my EeePC 901. But my other half, Hana, has an EeePC 701. She’s not a geek, and she just wants something that will work for her. She’s seen XP on a 701 and agreed the 7″ screen isn’t really up to scratch.

Recently we tried gOS on the 701. It’s Ubuntu based and very friendly. It’s well laid out and easy to use. Hana used it for a couple of months and got on well with it. The main problem was that wireless never quite worked properly, and using an Ethernet cable kind of spoils the point of a tiny laptop,

So this morning I swapped gOS for UNR. The installation was painless, and first boot went without hitch. The main snag I ran into on the 701 was that the animated menus made the whole system slow down. This turned out to be a bug which was easily remedied by installing two packages.

It’s early days yet – the system has only been functional for about an hour and Hana hasn’t used it yet. I’ll post again with more comments on UNR when we’ve had a chance to play with it.