Super Penguin NET

Found an interesting blog post about AT&T and linux support. Anyone with Linux and planning on getting their DSL service… even if you don’t have Linux I would still recommend reading  it. I don’t personally have AT&T at all. To me their service is horrible. Anyways to the point here is the Link.

I have an Acer Aspire 532h that was originally loaded with Windows 7 Starter that I upgraded to Windows 7 Premium. I let the kids use it for a while and it started having issues. Being slow etc… so I decided to reload it with Linux. My first choice was Ubuntu 10.04LTS Netbook. In this article I’ll go over my experience, the good and bad.

First let me go over a bit of my Linux experience. I started using Linux when I was very young, way before Ubuntu or Fedora was around. This was when Redhat was the most popular distro in my opinion and such. I started toying with it on a 286… Since then I have been using Linux in many different uses. I’ve used it for multiple desktops. Setup and managed multiple servers. At work now I even use it to develop on for cross platform compatibility. So to put it short I have plenty of Linux experience.

The idea of me switching to Linux on the netbook was to have an easy to use system for basic stuff like Email, Surfing, and chatting. At the same time wanted a system so when I let other people use it the system doesn’t get screwed up. Because of the screen size and such I figured the netbook editions would be ideal. Boy was I wrong, I’ll get more into that later.

Like I mentioned earlier I started with Ubuntu 10.04LTS Netbook edition. It ran great and the interface was okay. It wasn’t my ideal interface. The interface was not what most users are used to when it comes to a desktop interface. One issue I had with it and was preventing me to keeping with it was the Gnome Power Monitor. The monitor for whatever reason could not read power state correctly. It would randomly say my battery was critical (1% left) and hybernate. So I tried upgrading to 10.10 hoping it would fix the problem…

In 10.10 the same problem persisted and the interface was clunky. In 10.10 it uses Unity for the desktop which on netbooks is not ideal for me. It’s slow and not as user friendly as I would like. I changed it to the 2D interface which doesn’t use Unity as far as I know. This interface is very similar to the interface in 10.04. The icons are larger and such but due to the power issue I could not use it. If I disabled the power monitor the system would not sleep and such when I closed the lid which I feel I need. Like I said also the interface is a bit odd and not a normal desktop interface. It’s a great idea just not for me. Also since the desktop editions use the same power monitor they have the same issues.

So I decided to try Kubuntu 10.10 Netbook… It did not have the power issue but I had other issues. There is an issue when switching users it gives a blank screen. There is a work around for this but it does not work 100%. Also the ability to switch users is no where as nice as Ubuntu. You essentially start new sessions and is not presented easy to the user to continue a previous session and such. Biggest issue I had with 10.10 was the constant crashes. Seemed like I also had crashes.

So I went to Kubuntu 10.04 Netbook… Didn’t have the crash issues but I did have the other issues I mentioned. The same issues persisted in the desktop editions also. Another huge issue I had with Kubuntu was tethering. I use wireless tether on my phone for my netbook occasionally so it’s a must have.

I tried Fedora and Mint OS… I found the systems to basic and not intuitive at all. Also tried EasyPeasy but it is just Ubuntu basically and had the same issues. I did try Jolicloud. It has an interesting concept. In my opinion it is to web orientated and I don’t like the idea of that. I use Empathy for my IM client on linux which I really like but when I installed Empathy on Jolicloud it just didn’t feel right. It really only supports “officially” supported applications that you install from them directly which are mostly web apps. I tried many other distro’s like Suse and Mandriva. None really cut it.

Now how I got to my final solution… I did try Xubuntu which uses Xfce… It didn’t have the power issues but did have the simplistic issue. What I ended up doing was pretty straight forward in the end. I installed Ubuntu 10.04LTS Desktop. Disabled the Gnome power monitor and installed the Xfce power monitor. This worked great. Few preferences like showing the icon all the time. Removed the bottom bar and put everything up to. No trash can needed and such. Just need one desktop. Everything works great now without any issues…

So final solution… Ubuntu 10.04 desktop, Disable Gnome-Power-Monitor, install Xfce Power Monitor. If anyone needs actual instructions like packages to remove/install let me know in comments and I will post them. I am posting this article from the netbook now. It’s been running like this for about a month now. Now I do have to say. Battery life does not seem to last as long as it does in Windows. But everything does work and I am sure I can do tweaks to take care of the battery problem… I do run it max performance though.

I’ve recently have looked at various multi-media solutions for my home TV. One I came across called Boxee. Boxee is built on XBMC. I remember when XBMC which stands for XBox Media Center when it was first introduced back for the first generation XBox. Boxee does contribute back to XBMC to help further the project. Since XBMC first came out it has changed a lot. Now it is cross platform on Mac, Windows, and Linux. Boxee is the same and works on all 3 platforms.

I have tried Boxee on both Linux (Ubuntu 9.10) and Windows 7. I ended up using it on Windows 7 as my primary use. The issue with using it in Linux or other OS’ for that matter is the quality of video’s. If you have ever watched a video on a large LCD TV on Linux or an Operating system before Windows Vista the quality can be blocky and not look as good as expected. In windows vista/7 it has this technology called VRM9 which does some very nice video rendering. So in my personal recommendation no matter how much you are a fanboy for this usage I would recommend using Windows 7. Also I would recommend a Dual Core 3.0Ghz or better CPU, 2GB or more of Ram, and a decent video card to do hardware video rendering/decoding. With these requirements you should be able to watch HD video’s without any issues.

What I really like about Boxee is it’s integration with everything. I use it for Hulu, Netflix, Pandora, my personal video libraries and much more. In the browsing for TV Shows it will list shows available on Hulu as well so if you don’t have it you can still watch it. It also lists them from Syfy and many other channels that have internet feeds. There is a built in Netflix app to stream movies from netflix. It works with the recommendation system and such. The pandora app in it can login to your account and play your stations as create new ones. The quality on all these feeds is outstanding. The quality matches as if you streamed directly from the sites in full screen.

Boxee takes a different approach and ties in with social networks like Facebook and Twitter. It can sync with Digg, Flickr, Facebook, Netflix, Tumblr, Friendfeed, Facebook, and Twitter. The program is still in beta and needs a bit of work. It does get a few movies titles wrong every once in a while.

If you are looking for a new media center I would definitely recommend using Boxee. I think it’s better then any other media center software I have used out there.

Boxee Beta from boxee on Vimeo.