Who is still using Linpus?

Just curious how many people are happy with the linpus OS and don't plan on changing it? I've not received my aa1 yet but don't intended to do a lot of changes if any. I am not very computer savvy and a little nervous about making changes. In windows when I try to add something it usually breaks something. :lol: Although I see that there are many helpful users here that may convince me otherwise. People have mentioned some of these changes are trivial like vlc and skype two changes I hope goes well. I know I could have purchased a big hard drive battery and xp for just $50 dollars more. But for just surfing, email, and maybe some hulu I think linpus will be fine. Hope I'm right. Let me know what you think.

 

so far (~1 wk) Linpus is a pleasure to use, right out of the box. I'd never used linux before, and I DO NOT like fiddling with computers. They should just WORK. This does. Compared to Vista, it's FAST. My only quibble so far is with printing--linux seems to be totally incompatible with my lexmark printer. But that's for another forum.

 

I think you'll find there is still a ton of people using Linpus. I'm a little worried about your decision, however.

"I'll only ever need a web browser + email" is not the best reason to get Linux. It would be if it were true, but most people convince themselves that it is, when it is not. They get the machine and then within a few weeks find out it doesn't play their divx movies, or they decide they want to install Skype... then the remorse sets in.

I only recommend the Linpus A1 to people who hold at least a small interest in Linux for the sake of it. I hate to use the word "hobbyist", but it does take a certain degree of tech-savviness mixed in with genuine curiosity to make the long term relationship a happy one.

Or if you want to quote me:

 

I guess you could call me an experienced Linux user: I've been using it exclusively on my desktops, laptops & servers, both at home and at work, for about 6 years, and I'm comfortable with the command line as well as most of the popular desktop environments. And I happen to be very happy with the Linpus desktop.

When I first got my AA1 I did the usual messing around to see what it can do, I added Kompozer, GIMP, VLC, Firefox 3, Skype, the switch to an XFCE desktop etc. But I have to say that now that the novelty has worn off and I'm just using the AA1 as my everyday notebook (my poor old Kubuntu T'Pad X61 is languishing on it's dock- the AA1 is SO much easier to take to meetings etc!), I find that I don't bother to switch to the XFCE desktop- I've edited the Linpus desktop so Firefox 3, VLC, O and Kompzer are right there and I'm very happy. I did add the extra gig of RAM so that it doesn't bog when I'm multitasking, and I do use a script to switch the wireless to adhoc mode to allow me to use WMWiFiRouter with my PPC6700 phone when wireless isn't available, but I've actually gotten very fond of Linpus.

I guess the previous poster is correct in saying that you need to be a little adventurous, 'cos it certainly does need tweaking to get "just so". But learn how to do a full backup so you're not afraid of screwing it up and you can't go wrong. Of course that's not to say I won't be putting Kubuntu on it for fun to see how it works- but I bet I end up putting Linpus back after a coupla weeks.

 

I've been using Unix for over twenty years, and Linux as long as there has been a Linux, and I'm happy enough with Linpus. I've made a few changes, but basically it is the same as when I bought the unit.

I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me the _practical_ benefit in changing the Linux distribution, particularly when all the hardware works fine with Linpus, and is questionable with everything else. I can appreciate that people like to tinker, but so far I've not seen anything that would suggest that installing a different Linux -- as compared to making a few tweaks to Linpus -- will increase the functionality of the unit or my productivity in using it. I'm still open to suggestions, but none seem to be forthcoming.

 

Linpus is fine, but, we agree, only for someone willing to make at least some changes to the default configuration.

The question is how much frustration a Windows user with no Linux experience will feel trying to make those necessary changes? At some point you have to conclude its not worth it for them, that they would be better off running XP.

 

I'm one of those who's not happy with Linpus. Too much a pain to change the desktop icons. The panel is locked down in the default desktop. I've tried the script to get a regular XFCE desktop, but it replaces so many packages that I'm afraid to do a live update. But the last straw for Linpus was when the network manager blew up. I was trying to load something in Flash on Firefox and Firefox crashed and I lost my XFCE panel along with the network manager. I was able to restart the panel easily enough, but nothing I could do would bring back the network manager. Couldn't start it from the menu or the command prompt and restarting the computer didn't help either.

I tried Fedora on it, but it was too slow and wasn't consistently reading my SD card. Now I've just installed Xubuntu 8.10 beta. It's wonderful. It's a little slower to boot, but once it's running it seems every bit as snappy as Linpus. The only thing that didn't work out of the box was wireless, but it only took a couple minutes searching forums to learn how to get madwifi working (I just fixed a Freudian typo -- at first it said madwife ). So now I have everything set up the way I want it with a proper XFCE desktop and proper Linux partitions instead of everything being in root like Linpus does.

 

You could add a poll to your original post.

 

I've had my AA1 for a month now and have never previously tinkered with any Os's. In this time I've installed a new bios, skype, vlc, realplayer and f-spot with all the icons on the desktop. I also at one point changed the desktop to a more conventional form with nice backdrop and new icons. Then changed it back again, because altho the default desktop looks a little basic it works really well for me. With all the help from forums like this and a few select others like:
http://jorge.ulver.no/2008/08/06/acer-aspire-one-tips-and-tricks/
lots of posts by this guy
http://macles.blogspot.com/
you can get a grip very quickly. So all in all I'm over the moon

 

Or for a person who wants maintenance-free, worry-free laptops for his kids. This is potentially a huge market

Couldn't agree more. Life is to short to waste time messing about with operating systems if you don't need to.

 

Unfortunately, I didn't have the option of keeping a Linux distribution as mine came with Windows.

I only wish there was a one stop complete list of patches and configs Acer used so I could easily patch my Gentoo install. I'm slowly getting everything working like it should be, but its work. I didn't know about this site and tweaked a vanilla kernel config from scratch. It took a week to get wireless working, but I still have a ways to go...

 

I have had my One for about a month, still running Linpus. Until Ubuntu Netbook remix works flawlessly out of the box with the One I won't change. I have made my fair share of customizations and have edited group-apps.xml at least 100 times. I am satisfied with Linpus and see no need to change. I have a full size laptop if I need to do anything more.

 

I, too, totally agree with you there. I'm a fairly savvy user, built a few pc's over the years, and have loads of experience with XP and OS-X - Linux, however, I have absolutely zero experience of. I got the hdd Linux AAO simply because it was cheaper (Tesco had marked up the 1gb ram, 120gb HDD Linux version wrongly at 198 quid, heheh , was mildly curious to have a go with Linux, while safe in the knowledge I could quite easily whack XP on it if need be.

I fiddled with Linpus for about a day, quickly realising I couldn't be bothered getting to grips with another OS. Note that this really isn't a stab at Linpus, more a case of myself sticking with what I know. As a complete noob where Linux is concerned, I was (and still am) utterly baffled by the myriad different versions of it, and part of the reason why I quickly abandoned Linpus was that, as far as I can tell, were I ever to go the Linux route in the future on other computers (v. unlikely) it'd be something more mainstream that I'd have vaguely heard of previously like Ubuntu. i.e. not Linpus.

As it is, I'm now very happy with a freshly installed XP Pro SP3, with the few apps I'm actually going to use with it - VLC, Firefox, Comic Book Reader, AVG Free...er, that's it! I'm hoping this relatively sparse list will keep it nippy, and will stave off the usual XP degradation-over-time-requiring-fresh-install-syndrome. Right now, it boots in 25-30 seconds, while the resume from sleep is pretty negligible.

Love how my bag is now sooo much lighter and less bulky since confining my Macbook Pro to home only duties - that really was overkill for my mobile usage.

 

That's exactly what happend to me (well, the wireless manager just died after a shutdown), and then I started toying with other linuxes until I got to Mandriva 2009. I am using Linux on and off since 1998, but I am not the kind of guy who likes to spend hours recompiling kernels and doing hardcore tricks.
If you want BT, 3G, virtual machines and so on, you'll have to modify the kernel eventually, and I am not confident enough to do all that by myself, which is why I want to rely on a bigger distribution.

 

I am .. and i am loving it :mrgreen:

 

I am still using it, to my own surprise. I went for the HDU version since I wanted to multi-boot with Suse.
But, Suse is not 100% for this machine yet and I learned the ropes of linpus.
So, I got Xemacs, BT,navigation via BT & GPS, R (self compiled), Kate, opera, googleearth (next to last runs adequate, latest not at al) and a row of games (compiled freeciv and egoboo since default version was not for this size of sceen resp. broken). In summary, I got all I need.
Maybe in dec. with suse 11.1 I will multiboot. I still like suse better than linpus, especially miss kde

 

I am the least computer savvy person.I Have always used windows cos it was always just there but will be sticking with linpus on my A1. With the help of these forums I have made various tweaks and now it does just want I want. I never bothered to learn about computers while using windows cos I just accepted what it did but now I can make it work for me

 

I think it's fine for most things, does all I need anyway...
BTW - You say you have egoboo working, I'm trying but having touble... any clues?
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=4949&p=32837&hilit=egoboo#p32837

 

Still using Linpus after about eight weeks and am happy with it. I have done lots of hacks that I learned here on the forums, some for improved usability and some as an excuse to learn and experiment.

I like what faz71 said -- this really captures the joy of Linux: