The Mobile Office Blog

Everything appeared to be working fine after installing Ubuntu Netbook Remix on my Acer Aspire One...

...then the AAO tried to go into Suspend mode and it decided to lock up and requiring a hard re-boot.  After much soul (and Google) searching, I came across the cause and solution.  Suspend will not work right if you're using a SDHC card in the left SD slot without doing the following:

• Adjust the linux kernel boot parameters to address an issue with the SD slots
1. Open up /etc/default/grub in an editor (I use vi)
2. Edit the GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT parameter to include pciehp.pciehp_force=1
3. Save the file
4. Run update-grub2
   
• Install a new linux-backports-modules-karmic package running the following command in terminal: sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-karmic (You'll need to reboot after this is done.)
  
• Add a script that unmounts/remounts the SD card at the time of system suspension and re-awakening.  Here's a link to the Ubuntu help page that contains the unmount/remount script. Create the script file /usr/lib/pm-utils/sleep.d/010_unmount_SD.sh, fill it up with the script provided, and chmod it to 755 per the instructions.

That's it!  Suspend will work and it will resume correctly.

Image by Yoppy

Whenever I rebuild my netbook, I have to go through the arduous process of getting the software tools that make this little computer a little more fun to use.  After a Windows install, I've got to run around the internet to find apps like Google Chrome, Firefox, OpenOffice, the GIMP, a lite twitter client, etc.  A lot of times I hit up download.com (cnet's download center) to look for interesting apps to try.  More often than not, I end of with something that doesn't meet my needs and the uninstall is more painful than finding the crapplication was.  I say...NO MORE!!!

Ubuntu's native Ubuntu Software Center is an App Store for Linux

Realizing that learning to use a standard Linux package manager (like rpm or yum) was a barrier to entry for those new to Linux, the Ubuntu community set out to make software installation and removal easy by following the app store paradigm.  With the Ubuntu Software Center, users can:

• Browse for applications by "Department"
• Search for applications by term
• "One-click" install applications
• "One-click" remove unwanted applications

Like other popular App Stores, when a user finds an app that they would like or is already installed, it's easy to see what to do!

Once an app is installed, there's no need to do anything to keep up to date with the latest version as the Ubuntu Software Center is integrated into the operating system and application updates will arrive auto-magically along with the regular system updates.  I'm glad to see that the Ubuntu community is hard a work bringing Linux to the masses! 

Well, my days of the using the free Windows 7 Release Candidate are over...I hate getting messages telling me that my computers going to shut down if I don't give M$ some money.

Looking back on my time with Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One, I must say that I was very pleased with Microsoft's offering this time around!  I would suggest that anyone wanting to stay on Microsoft who already has a netbook running XP: Go for it!  I had no problems with the RC for the 6 or so months that I used it.  Windows 7 was so great that I actually upgraded my wife's Gateway laptop and my work laptop to the full version of 7. (It helps that my wife has a .edu address so she could purchase her Win7 license at a great price.)

Now on to Ubuntu Netbook Remix!  It was a really easy install and almost everything works!  Take a look:

I'll tell you more about it later.  Any specific questions you want answered, just put them in the comments!

Well, it's Christmas Eve and the end of the year is upon us.  In case you missed them, I've decided to recap the top 4 posts this year based on traffic.  I can easily tell which posts have gotten the most traffic using my HubSpot Blog Analytics.

At #1, with a total of 543 views, is "Acer Aspire One Bag: Well, it's actually a sleeve...".  This post, written at the tail end of 2008, received a bunch of traffic back in March as the Acer Aspire One was gaining momentum in the netbook market.

In 2nd place, with 289 views, is another post from the end of 2008 about the Acer Aspire One: "Fedora 10 on the Acer Aspire One is nice".  This post also peaked in the spring of 2009 as folks who bought the AAO with Linpus Lite pre-installed began looking for an open-source alternative to the pared down OS.

The 3rd most popular post of the year, with a mere 151 views, was written this fall as the Windows 7 release candidate was finalized and I decided to give it a go on the Acer Aspire One: "Windows 7 on Acer Aspire One".  I'm still using the release candidate on the AAO and still enjoying it.  I'll switch up to a new linux distro as the end of the release candidate life cycle approaches in March 2010.

In 4th place this year we have the post that I wrote about conserving space on the Acer's 8 GB SSD: "Windows 7 Leaves Little Space on the Aspire One's 8 GB SSD".

Well, that's it for 2009, see you in...

Image by toettoet 

Last week I wrote about some of the ways I save space on the Acer Aspire One running Windows 7.  This weekend I did a little digging to find out where the space went and found a cheap, simple tweak to reclaim 1.2 GB of my 8 GB SSD.

Simply using file explorer, I started to review the files on the AAO's SSD.  The first thing I noticed was that the C: Drive had a couple of really large files: pagefile.sys (approx. 1.5 GB) and hiberfil.sys (approx 1.2 GB).  I already knew how to control the page file size and am happy with the system performance, so I knew to leave pagefile.sys alone.  The naming of hiberfil.sys was also pretty logical and I knew that I hadn't yet disabled hibernation in Windows 7.  I also couldn't find a place in Windows to actually turn off the hibernation function. 

A simple Google search for hiberfil.sys and I found my solution!  Hiberfil.sys, simply stated, is the disk image of the RAM that is used by Windows' hibernation functionality.  A few simple steps and I was able to disable the hibernation feature in Windows 7.  After disabling hibernation I now have almost 2.5 GB of free space on my 8 GB SSD, up from 1.3 GB last week.

To sum up the simple way you disable hibernation: enter powercfg.exe -h off at a command prompt and hit enter.  This will disable hibernation and immediately remove the hiberfil.sys file.

Why disable hibernation?  Good question!  The simple answer is that I don't use hibernation.  I never have enough stuff going on on my computer that I need to save it all for later.  I usually just shut the cover on the Aspire One and let it sleep which provides near instant on (about 5 sec.) and uses minimal power (the AAO with the 9-cell battery can sleep for a couple of days with no problems.) If I need to conserve power, I can just turn off the AAO since it turns on in about 30 seconds anyway!

How have you tweaked your Window 7 implementation to reclaim space on your netbook?  Let us know in the comments! 

Image by edanley 

One question my friends ask when they see me with my Acer Aspire One netbook is: What can you really do with a computer that small?  The answer is usually: Most of what you can do with your big honking laptop.  

One area where their huge machines win the "mine is bigger than yours" game is when it comes to disk space.  My AAO has a mere 8GB Solid State drive and, since installing Windows 7, I've used more of the drive than ever before.  The optimized install left me with a mere 1.3 GB of space on the internal drive which, in the age of terabytes, can seem a little scary.  How long can I go before I've filled the entire drive and Windows decides to not like it?

In order to preserve as much of the space as possible on the SSD, I've set a simple rule for myself: Don't install applications on the SSD!  (with only 2 exceptions)

First, the exceptions: Google Chrome and Firefox.  Since it IS a netbook I figured I should install the browsers directly on the main drive to allow for maximum performance.  To prevent the browsers from hogging all of the space I've limited them to 5 days of history (down from 90) which drastically reduces the amount of data they will store (and gives both browsers a nice performance boost at startup!)

I install all other applications on the 4GB SD card that I've had in the AAO since the day I got it.  You see, the AAO has 2 SD readers: 1 that was originally intended to extend the SSD and 1 that is meant to be a regular use card reader.  I keep the 4GB card in the "extend the SSD" slot even though my Windows 7 environment treats it like a regular USB reader.  I've got folders for the applications as well as my document, download, and other miscellaneous folders.  

Anytime I download an application, I save the file to the Download directory on the SD card (I've also configured my browsers to save to this folder by default so I don't accidentally start filling up the SSD.)  When I install, I don't let the installer determine the location.  I manually pick a new folder on my SD card.  Additionally, I've gotten out of the habit of installing default features.  I review all of the options available for the custom install and only pick the features that I actually use.  You'd be surprised how much space you can save by NOT installing functionality meant for other languages! 

Another way I save space is to put media in its proper place:

Don't let photos take up your drive space:  Utilize an online photo sharing service like flickr, facebook, or if you're a Google user, Picasa.

Don't let videos hang around either:  Honestly, are you really doing video production on an 8GB netbook?  Load those videos to Vimeo, Viddler, or YouTube to reclaim that space.

How many copies of the same song do you need on your person at any one time?  It's great to have a massive music library so you'll never have to listen to the same song twice, but keep your music on your mp3 player (or your G1, iPhone, iPod) and leave the backups at home!  An external USB drive is a great way to keep your music library safely backed up. 

So, I'm going to keep happily trucking along with my 1.2 GB of space on my internal SSD and if anything comes up, I'll let you know! 

How do you maximize your digital storage space? Post in the comments! 

Image by seeks2dream

Whenever you connect to a WiFi network in Windows 7 for the first time, Windows asks you what type of network you're joining.  Your options are:

1. Home - The idea here is that you've got a secured home network that has a lot of good stuff that is shared and that you'll need access to so Windows 7 is going to be on the lookout for other computers that are members of your "Homegroup"
2. Work - The idea here is that you're joining your secure work network and you'll be dealing with a network much like you have in the past, with specific shared resources and network locations you'll be accessing
3. Public - Your sitting at Starbucks (or in my case on the commuter boat going across Boston Harbor) and you just want to access the internet and protect all of your files and resources from the prying eyes of your fellow coffee drinkers (or boaters)

A few weeks ago I wrote about my easy installation and first impressions of Windows 7 on an Acer Aspire One, and after a couple of weeks with this as my primary mobile machine, I thought you might like to know how it's going.

It's zippy.  The big thing that I've noticed is that the AAO with a 1.6 Atom processor, 8 GB SSD, and 1.5 GB RAM is playing very nicely with the OS.  From cold boot to up-and-running is about 25 seconds and waking the AAO from a nice nap takes about 2 seconds.  Since most of my work is browser based, I'm not running into any memory or processor issues (now.)

It lasts a long time.  Maybe longer than most since I've got a huge honking 9-cell battery in the AAO at all times.  A full charge is registering at just over 7 hours with a realistic uptime of about 6 and 3/4 hours.  The nice thing is I can let it sleep all the time therefore getting amazing wakeup time and only have to throw it on that charger at night.

It plays nice with most software.  While I'm not installing tons of stuff on here (there's only about 1.3 GB of SSD space left after the install and updates,) I am able to use all of the software that I use on my bigger work machine.  I've installed Google Chrome and Firefox 3.5 for browsing (as I'm not convinced that Chrome and the Atom processor play nice,) Trillian Astra for IM and the GIMP to deal with any images that I want to adjust (I actually made the new blog banner on the AAO using GIMP!)  

I can be lazy!  Not to start anything, but I am liking the return to Windows after more than a year with Linux on the AAO.  I love Linux, but I too like to take it easy sometimes.  Microsoft did get the ease of use factor up in the latest version of Windows and it makes for a nice easy time.  I've had no stability issues and I've not run into a piece of hardware in the gadget bag that Win 7 doesn't like (yet...where's that piece of wood I keep around...knock...knock.)

So, after a couple of weeks, I can say that, barring any unforeseen bad updates, I'll be sticking with Windows 7 on my Acer Aspire One for a while! 

A week ago, Microsoft stopped allowing the download of the Release Candidate for Windows 7.  I took the opportunity to download the RC image so I could give it a workout on my Acer Aspire One.  Here's a recap of my install experience and my initial impressions.

I started with a little Googling and found that a lot of folks had issues installing Win7 on their AAOs, mostly due to the lack of disk space.  I too fell into the category of those with only 8 GB of space on the OEM SSD.  I decided that my best option was to install vLite on my Dell at work and use it to pare down the installation.  I was able to remove a few things I knew I wouldn't need (mainly language packs that take up a lot of space in the install files) and cut about 1 GB off of the base ISO image.

The next issue I ran into was that I had to get the ISO on my generic 4 GB USB stick AND get it to actually list as a boot option on the AAO.  This is where the pain began.  I used a program called bootsect.exe that I found out on the web to make the drive bootable, but alas, it wouldn't show up in the AAO BIOS as a boot option.  I tried all of the USB ports, tried tricking the system, upgraded the BIOS to v.3309 and could not get it to work.  I had been spoiled by uNetBootin for creating Linux distro installs on my USB stick...

In the end, it turns out that my Dell was not properly unmounting the USB drive and the AAO HATED IT!!!  I found this out (by accident) by mounting the drive on the existing Fedora 10 install on the AAO, seeing all of the files where they should be, and then unmounting the drive.  The next time I tried, VIOLA!!!

The entire install process took about an hour (with my vLite pared down ISO) and I went through the setup and was surprised to find that Windows 7 was pretty zippy on my AAO!  I immediately used IE8 to download the latest Google Chrome browser and have been online ever since.  With a 30 second boot time and all of the hardware working as expected with no tweak or additional driver downloads, it's working out great so far!

So while my T-Mobile G1 is still running Android 1.5 (which is awesome), now I can have it look just like my Acer Aspire One desktop that runs Fedora 10.

Using dxTop and a Fedora 10 theme, I've got the best of both worlds: 1) A smartphone that kicks ass; and 2) A standard look and feel across my mobile office hardware. Check out the screen shot of my G1 to the right and the screen shot of my AAO below.  They look great together!