Best Linux OS for ZG5 ?

Discussion in 'Linux' started by CmdrMercutio, Feb 13, 2010.

  1. CmdrMercutio

    CmdrMercutio

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    Hi all

    I used Linux (Mandrake) a long time ago but then defected off to Mac territory
    I bought a ZG5 Aspire one (9", 160gb HDD version) with Linpus, a year ago.

    I had it running nicely, with a full XFCE desktop, VLC, Jungledisk, etc, using tips from here, Macles and other sources, but then the internal fan failed on it and it had to go back for repair.

    It was returned to me (for the 2nd time, the first time they sent it back unrepaired) - wiped clean
    And all the Fedora Core 8 repositories I used to download desirable programs from are now unavailable. So I'm stuck with no apps, which seems like a good reason to get off Linpus. I spent a week doing RPM hell with conflicted dependencies before coming to this conclusion

    So, I want a Linux OS for my ZG5 that will work, basically.

    My research suggests that Ubuntu 9.10 will work with the hardware, with WiFi , and can be made to accept the SD Card slots with a very trivial amount of hacking as per elsewhere on this forum. I've tried 10.0 lucid as a livecd already but my result as elsewhere is that SD readers dont work with it and the SD-fix hacks for 9.x dont work with it either. Can anyone advise if I've missed a post somewhere to get SD readers running on 10. x ?

    Other distros I have looked at include SuSE, JoliCloud and Linux4One but I understand they all have SD reader issues too.

    So am I right that 9,10 is where its at now, or should i look further afield? Lack of hotpluggable SD is a deal-breaker for me.

    Cheers for any insights offered
     
    CmdrMercutio, Feb 13, 2010
    #1
  2. CmdrMercutio

    HappyH

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    I'm a million miles from being an expert mate but Ubuntu seems the way to go. My Linpus has been pain-free since last August but if it gives me any aggro in the future it's bye-bye Linpus hello Ubuntu for me.
    HH.
     
    HappyH, Feb 14, 2010
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  3. CmdrMercutio

    garypearson

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    You could try eeebuntu. I use it on my ZG5-- works well, even the 3G card works fine.

    Their stable release is version 3. They have a version 4 in beta. Version 3 is based on ubuntu 9.04.
     
    garypearson, Feb 14, 2010
    #3
  4. CmdrMercutio

    Darryl

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    Darryl, Feb 14, 2010
    #4
  5. CmdrMercutio

    hgh9mrp

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    I was pretty much satisfied with the originally installed Linpus. I tried several other distributions including some those in earlier posts; however, the distribution that I installed and have been running these past six months is Moblin, now up to v2.1. It just seems to work better on my ZG5.
    You can download it from the Moblin website http://moblin.org/

    AAO-110 ZG5, 8GB SSD, 8GB SD, 1.5GB, Moblin v1.2
     
    hgh9mrp, Feb 19, 2010
    #5
  6. CmdrMercutio

    CmdrMercutio

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    I've had all manner of fun

    First try

    Installed XP in a 10gb partition, created a 10gb partition for swapping files between XP and Linux, then booted off the Ubuntu 9.10 UNR disk

    It absolutely insisted on shrinking one of my windows aprtitions, so I let it, and it halved the 10gb file swapping partition and installed UNR in the other half of it, leaving my remaining 140gb unformatted

    I booted into Ubuntuy NBR, and used Gparted to format the remaining space, but then because gparted only runs as Superuser I couldnt mount it anyway


    Second attempt

    Installed XP on the whole drive, checked it worked, de-fragged to move all files to the front of the drive then booted off the same Ubunti 9.10 UNR disk, shrunk thw 160gb NTFS partition down to 20gb using the installer, and installed Ubuntu into the new linux partition

    then found the XP partition was unbootable (I have o explanation for this, it worked fine first time before I repartitioned)and GRUB just sits at the black screen blinking when I try to select XP


    UNR when configured with a proper GNOME desktop is great, everything works well - but I'll be formatting it again shortly to try to get a working XP and Linux set up
     
    CmdrMercutio, Feb 19, 2010
    #6
  7. CmdrMercutio

    CmdrMercutio

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    the first dualboot setup worked as a dual-boot system

    the second attempt did not (won't boot XP)

    One obvious difference is that on the first, I refused the ubuntu updater's desire to upgrade GRUB. one the second, I accepted it. anyone think that might be relevant or had a similar experience?
     
    CmdrMercutio, Feb 20, 2010
    #7
  8. CmdrMercutio

    Darryl

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    Darryl, Feb 21, 2010
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  9. CmdrMercutio

    CmdrMercutio

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    .. it wasn't that

    it was an update for GRUB offered to 9.10 NBR through the update manager that did it. I've replicated the problem three times now. installing the GRUB update makes my Zg5 unable to boot XP, leaving it uninstalled leaves XP bootable.

    I have no explanation. But I am now very happy with my dual-boot system, with a mac-like GNOME environment installed onto the netbook-orientated NBR edition
     
    CmdrMercutio, Mar 3, 2010
    #9
  10. CmdrMercutio

    me075064

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    me075064, Mar 9, 2010
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  11. CmdrMercutio

    GurbZ

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    Try Leeenux 3.0: http://www.leeenux-linux.com/
    The best I've tried and I tried a LOT. I waited 2 years for a distro like this one on my ZG5

    Grtz,

    GurbZ
     
    GurbZ, Apr 2, 2010
    #11
  12. CmdrMercutio

    Jimux

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    Moblin is a good choice as it is aimed at Intel Atom powered netbooks, and for SuSE fans there is a version of Moblin called Gremlin.

    Grub should not cause boot problems, but in multi-partition machines it can change the boot priority of the partitions so you need to alter them manually.

    Puppy is probably the easiest to try out as creating a bootable CD/usb stick/SD Card is very easy.

    Mint installed well and looked nice on my 150, but application installer would not work.
    Suse 11.2 installed from a net-boot disk. Everything works. Once set up to input user name to logon you have a big choice of desktops from the very comprehensive KDE through Gnome, XFCE to the ultra-slim, fast LXDE. The lot took 4% of my 140Gb disk.
     
    Jimux, Apr 2, 2010
    #12
  13. CmdrMercutio

    CmdrMercutio

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    the Grub update nuked my XP partition completely, reproducible. - I tried several times to renew the settings and make it bootable after reading T.F.M carefully..

    Anyway, without that update I'm now perfectly happy with my heavily modded UNR install (got rid of the launcher and all the apps I dont use, and put together a lightweight desktop with a single desk-bar

    - and being much more careful about what updates I install now of course.

    thanks for all the helpful posts guys
     
    CmdrMercutio, Apr 2, 2010
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  14. CmdrMercutio

    Reno

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    Location:
    Vernon BC Canada
    Been running Jolicloud for about 2 months now.
    Went from:
    Linpus Lite to Kuki to CrunchBang back to Kuki and finally on to Jolicloud.
    Jolicloud is fast, refined and needed the least amount of tweaking, in fact no tweaking at all for what I use my ZG5 for. Also the wireless works better than any other I've tried.
    Their apps menu is fantastic and one can also use synaptic. Good support too.
    This distro floats my boat. :D
     
    Reno, Apr 10, 2010
    #14
  15. CmdrMercutio

    magnumopus

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    I was an Ubuntu netbook remix fan until about two months ago, however I would avoid it like the plague if at all possible. Sure it is easy to install and use, but it slowly degrades. In my case the Window manager slowly lost small bits of functionality until I was unable to even select or resize windows. The only way was to use the tab key.

    These days I use Linux Mint 8 (Helena). I have found it for the last six weeks to be very stable, although I do advise setting up the acer fan hack otherwise it can drive you nuts. More importantly though the wifi connectivity is far better than under Ubuntu. I am not sure why as they are very similar, but under ubuntu I had constant connection problems.

    Rod
     
    magnumopus, May 5, 2010
    #15
  16. CmdrMercutio

    CmdrMercutio

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    That sounds like an issue with your install, possibly filesystem issues causing the config files to become corrupted. Linux Mint uses the same underpinnings as Ubuntu.

    I've been heavily using Ubuntu 9.10 NBR with a GNOME desktop hacked onto the top of it since shortly after starting this thread, and had tremendous success

    In fact to replace my Apple Mac desktop I have this week bought an Acer Revo R3610 250gb edition net-top PC which will also run Ubuntu (probably 10.04 LTS) because I like the system so much
     
    CmdrMercutio, May 5, 2010
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  17. CmdrMercutio

    bugtussle

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    Running Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook edition right now. Running Very Well!! Everything working fine. An improvement over the last version of Netbook Remix.
     
    bugtussle, May 12, 2010
    #17
  18. CmdrMercutio

    GlenMH

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    Agreed.

    I only ever use the LH SD card slot and that works perfectly.
    Sort the fan control out and get suspend working by unmounting the SD card and it is a painless experience.

    Next job is to add more ram as the SSD is painfully slow.
     
    GlenMH, May 22, 2010
    #18
  19. CmdrMercutio

    art_oliver

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    Hello,

    Actually I have in a test phase Ubuntu NBR 10.04 LTS with some issues to solve ... specially suspend/hibernation
    that don't work with the SD cards mounted ... this very annoying in a system where these operations are a must ... there are
    also some mic trouble with some apps (Skype) ...

    I already try several distros (Original Linpus, Mint, OpenSuse, PCLinuxOS, Debian 5, Xubuntu, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Crunchbang etc) and all have always something that don't work as expected and require digging to solve the issues ... this could be passionate or not ... but until now the distro that spend more time installed in my ZG5 was Sidux. Everything runs out of the box! Well ... almost the SD cards don't mount automatically during boot but for the suspend/hibernation issue this could be a advantage ...System suspend and recover from suspension correctly. System hibernate but don't recover from that state.

    Sidux is Debian Sid / KDE based I use initially with 3.5.10 (ext2) and everything run out of the box but I'm forced to install KDE 4 because everytime you want to install new software repositories start to impose libraries and dependencies to KDE 4 ...

    In the following link you have a SS of my old desktop of Sidux with KDE 3.5.10:
    http://www.lynucs.org/index.php?screen_ ... 8&p=screen

    Even with KDE 4.3. (ext4) the experience was very pleasant and stable.
    Sidux isn't specially fast on boot (50" to 1') from grub level until have a working session but once running is very fast.

    Give Sidux a try! Post your experience!

    Regards from Lisbon - City of Fado

    Artur
     
    art_oliver, May 29, 2010
    #19
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