Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
On Sat, 2010-04-10 at 12:36 +0100, Barry Drake wrote: Hi there . I've been lurking and listening for a while. You seem a friendly group, so I thought I'd leap in. A couple of weeks ago I bought a Dell Inspiron Mini 10v pre-loaded with Ubuntu. Now I've got it working as I want I have to say I'm over the moon with the product. But I fail to understand the attitude of Dell. They seem to act as though the only sell Linux products grudgingly. Before I bought, I wanted to know what flavour of Ubuntu I would get. With difficulty, the sales team were able to confirm that it would come with Hardy 8.04. 'What flavour' was a question they simply didn't understand! Well, I suppose that they consider it a niche product and haven't trained their staff in answering questions related to it. It came with a very heavily customised version of 8.04. Frankly, I didn't like it a lot, and am now running Lucid beta (Netbook edition) and the whole thing is fantastic! How heavily customised? Does it come with non-standard software and drivers or is it just a case of having it heavily Dell branded? Also, the Mini 10v only has 8 Gig of hard drive. Why, Oh why do Dell insist on including a 1.4 Gig recovery partition? I didn't spend long looking, but never found a way of booting into it! And the manual only tells how to use it from Windows!!! The supplied restore DVD gives no configuration options at all. If you run it, it re-partitions the HD just as factory supplied. That's what they'd do with Windows so I suspect they never imagined that Linux users may want anything else. As you can imagine, my system now uses the whole drive. Complaints on the Dell forums are always about the amazingly slow speed of the Mini V10. Mine runs at least as fast as my fairly up to date Windows XP PC. The complaints usually come from Windows 7 users. Dell have a great little Netbook here. Why must they spoil it? Oh, the other thing is I wanted a fallback. I have a nice little Puppy Linux installed on a 250 Meg card, and I've added partimage to it. It really is a lovely way of getting back to a stable installation if any of the regular upgrades goes sour on me. On a completely different point, someone here mentioned an exhibition where there were some OU folk competing an old Windows machine against Ubuntu A short while back, someone gave me two Pentium iii PC's built for Windows 98. I was going to strip them down, but just for fun, I tried U-Lite on them. They turned out to be VERY serviceable, and better than they ever were on Win 98. It just goes to show . I just installed Xubuntu Lucid beta 2 on an old Pentium III (700MHz, 384MB RAM, 8.8GB HDD) and it absolutely flies. Windows 2000 that was running (or rather crawling) on it until last night would take 1/2 hour to boot and would be very painful to use. Xubuntu takes 1 minute and 30 seconds to go from on to fully logged in with Wi-Fi connected and makes it a very usable machine: great for web browsing, listening to music or using the occasional spreadsheet. Bruno -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Bruno Girin brunogi...@gmail.com wrote: I just installed Xubuntu Lucid beta 2 on an old Pentium III (700MHz, 384MB RAM, 8.8GB HDD) and it absolutely flies. Windows 2000 that was running (or rather crawling) on it until last night would take 1/2 hour to boot and would be very painful to use. Xubuntu takes 1 minute and 30 seconds to go from on to fully logged in with Wi-Fi connected and makes it a very usable machine: great for web browsing, listening to music or using the occasional spreadsheet. To be fair, if you wiped reinstalled the machine with a fresh clean copy of Windows 2000, I bet it would fly as well. Of course, then it needs patching up to date, followed by a visit to the very handy www.ninite.com to install anti-malware a bunch of useful apps. So it's hours more work than with *buntu of course you need a copy of Windows a licence. But it's not solely a magic property of *buntu, handy as it is. Taking any old PC, formatting its disks reinstalling it afresh with a suitable copy of its original OS or something not too much newer will always give it a huge new lease of life. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
Bruno Girin wrote: How heavily customised? Does it come with non-standard software and drivers or is it just a case of having it heavily Dell branded? Heavily branded, as you'd expect, but annoying things like no easy access to upgrades, repositories other than the pre-installed one and so on. I know all these things are easy to overcome with a bit of script editing, but it's even easier to start over and re-install the whole system. Other than the software sources gui app, the software is very standard, and the only specialised driver required is a Broadcom wifi driver that is there in the Ubuntu restricted repo. I think you are right in thinking that Dell regard Linux as 'niche'. It just seems a shame. Barry -- From Barry Drake (The Revd) Health and Healing advisor to the East Midlands Synod of the United Reformed Church. See http://www.urc5.org.uk/index for information about the synod, and http://www.urc5.org.uk/?q=node/703 for the Synod Healing pages. Replies - b.dr...@ntlworld.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
Liam Proven wrote: To be fair, if you wiped reinstalled the machine with a fresh clean copy of Windows 2000, I bet it would fly as well. In the case of the old P3's I mentioned, one of them came to me with XP installed and it was almost unusable, hence the reason for throwing it. I tried Win 98, and it was still very slow. With U-Lite, it really works for the first time in its life I guess! Barry -- From Barry Drake (The Revd) Health and Healing advisor to the East Midlands Synod of the United Reformed Church. See http://www.urc5.org.uk/index for information about the synod, and http://www.urc5.org.uk/?q=node/703 for the Synod Healing pages. Replies - b.dr...@ntlworld.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
On Sat, 2010-04-10 at 14:30 +0100, Liam Proven wrote: On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 2:21 PM, Bruno Girin brunogi...@gmail.com wrote: I just installed Xubuntu Lucid beta 2 on an old Pentium III (700MHz, 384MB RAM, 8.8GB HDD) and it absolutely flies. Windows 2000 that was running (or rather crawling) on it until last night would take 1/2 hour to boot and would be very painful to use. Xubuntu takes 1 minute and 30 seconds to go from on to fully logged in with Wi-Fi connected and makes it a very usable machine: great for web browsing, listening to music or using the occasional spreadsheet. To be fair, if you wiped reinstalled the machine with a fresh clean copy of Windows 2000, I bet it would fly as well. Of course, then it needs patching up to date, followed by a visit to the very handy www.ninite.com to install anti-malware a bunch of useful apps. So it's hours more work than with *buntu of course you need a copy of Windows a licence. But it's not solely a magic property of *buntu, handy as it is. Taking any old PC, formatting its disks reinstalling it afresh with a suitable copy of its original OS or something not too much newer will always give it a huge new lease of life. You're right, installing it afresh with a copy of its original OS or something not too much newer will always make it work better. What is interesting about installing Xubuntu on it though is that we're talking about the very latest version of the OS, with modern apps, up to date security patches and great support online. So not only is the machine working, in the sense that you can use it, but it does so to a level where it can integrate into a modern IT infrastructure, exchange data with much newer systems and benefit from a level of support that is on a par with a brand new box. This would not have been very important 10 years ago but in today's world where everybody is connected to the net and exchange lolcats with their friends via facebook, it can make quite a difference. Bruno -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
On Sat, 2010-04-10 at 14:19 +0100, Barry Drake wrote: Bruno Girin wrote: How heavily customised? Does it come with non-standard software and drivers or is it just a case of having it heavily Dell branded? Heavily branded, as you'd expect, but annoying things like no easy access to upgrades, repositories other than the pre-installed one and so on. I know all these things are easy to overcome with a bit of script editing, but it's even easier to start over and re-install the whole system. Other than the software sources gui app, the software is very standard, and the only specialised driver required is a Broadcom wifi driver that is there in the Ubuntu restricted repo. I think you are right in thinking that Dell regard Linux as 'niche'. It just seems a shame. That's good to know because it means the hardware is supported out of the box so if you have the desire and knowledge to re-install the OS form scratch, you're not locked in with what Dell decided to give you. It'd be nicer if it was a stock Ubuntu on the box to start with but it's a step in the right direction. Bruno -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 5:32 PM, Bruno Girin brunogi...@gmail.com wrote: You're right, installing it afresh with a copy of its original OS or something not too much newer will always make it work better. What is interesting about installing Xubuntu on it though is that we're talking about the very latest version of the OS, with modern apps, up to date security patches and great support online. So not only is the machine working, in the sense that you can use it, but it does so to a level where it can integrate into a modern IT infrastructure, exchange data with much newer systems and benefit from a level of support that is on a par with a brand new box. This would not have been very important 10 years ago but in today's world where everybody is connected to the net and exchange lolcats with their friends via facebook, it can make quite a difference. True. And whereas (say) Windows 2000 actually is still highly usable, supporting PCI-E graphics, USB2, stuff like that, it gets very few security updates, which are mostly for the wretched IE6 - it can't run anything newer. Firefox 3.6 works fine but Chrome and Safari don't, nor do current versions of QuickTime, iTunes various other proprietary tools. So, yes, conceded, it's better off with *buntu. But the miraculous resurrection isn't due solely to *buntu! I am interested: do people really find Xubuntu much lighter, faster or more resource-frugal than vanilla GNOME Ubuntu? In my experiments, I don't, GNOME offers novice-friendly features like the ability to lock panel widgets controls into place, progress bars on file operations and stuff like that. When - if - it is ever final, I plan to look at Lubuntu and see how it fares. It's not there yet, though. U-Lite is a good option, though. -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
Liam Proven wrote: When - if - it is ever final, I plan to look at Lubuntu and see how it fares. It's not there yet, though. Any release 8.04 would not boot on either of my old boxes! Gave up with a kernel panic error. But it was possible to upgrade once the 8.04 was installed. As both boxes have the bes part of a Gig of memory, they would REALLY fly with Puppy installed, but U-Lite is very fast and very usable. Lubuntu is not possible because it is 8.04! Barry -- From Barry Drake (The Revd) Health and Healing advisor to the East Midlands Synod of the United Reformed Church. See http://www.urc5.org.uk/index for information about the synod, and http://www.urc5.org.uk/?q=node/703 for the Synod Healing pages. Replies - b.dr...@ntlworld.com -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
On Sat, 2010-04-10 at 17:49 +0100, Liam Proven wrote: snip I am interested: do people really find Xubuntu much lighter, faster or more resource-frugal than vanilla GNOME Ubuntu? In my experiments, I don't, GNOME offers novice-friendly features like the ability to lock panel widgets controls into place, progress bars on file operations and stuff like that. Well, my completely unscientific comparison between 3 systems currently running Ubuntu shows the following memory usage when idle: * Karmic Ubuntu laptop: ~400MB, * Karmic UNR EeePc: ~200MB, * Lucid Xubuntu laptop: ~100MB. The difference is not huge and wouldn't make much of a difference on the first 2 machines, as they each have 2GB RAM installed. However, the third one has 384MB RAM so having an OS that uses just above a quarter of the physical RAM means that it hardly ever swaps, which makes a huge difference in terms of user response. In terms of pure processing power, I can't really see a difference between Ubuntu and Xubuntu so far. So my first impression is that using Xubuntu rather than Ubuntu really makes a difference on machines that are limited in physical RAM (say less than 512MB). This would be compounded on older machines that have a slow hard disk and for which swapping can kill performance. At the end of the day, the final word has to be with the end user: in this case the Xubuntu box is my girlfriend's old laptop that she's being forced to use while she finds a replacement for her main computer that recently died and her first reaction in using it today was wow, it's fast! Bruno -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
Re: [ubuntu-uk] Dell Inspiron Mini 10v
On Sat, Apr 10, 2010 at 7:40 PM, Bruno Girin brunogi...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, 2010-04-10 at 17:49 +0100, Liam Proven wrote: snip I am interested: do people really find Xubuntu much lighter, faster or more resource-frugal than vanilla GNOME Ubuntu? In my experiments, I don't, GNOME offers novice-friendly features like the ability to lock panel widgets controls into place, progress bars on file operations and stuff like that. Well, my completely unscientific comparison between 3 systems currently running Ubuntu shows the following memory usage when idle: * Karmic Ubuntu laptop: ~400MB, * Karmic UNR EeePc: ~200MB, * Lucid Xubuntu laptop: ~100MB. The difference is not huge and wouldn't make much of a difference on the first 2 machines, as they each have 2GB RAM installed. However, the third one has 384MB RAM so having an OS that uses just above a quarter of the physical RAM means that it hardly ever swaps, which makes a huge difference in terms of user response. In terms of pure processing power, I can't really see a difference between Ubuntu and Xubuntu so far. So my first impression is that using Xubuntu rather than Ubuntu really makes a difference on machines that are limited in physical RAM (say less than 512MB). This would be compounded on older machines that have a slow hard disk and for which swapping can kill performance. At the end of the day, the final word has to be with the end user: in this case the Xubuntu box is my girlfriend's old laptop that she's being forced to use while she finds a replacement for her main computer that recently died and her first reaction in using it today was wow, it's fast! Wow! Impressive! Fair play to you, and thanks for that. Maybe I should give it another look! Currently have Intrepid NBR running on my Thinkpad X31 whereas there are a few wrinkles with it, I'm impressed, and it feels faster than 9.x did. I might try Xubuntu as well... -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: lpro...@cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lpro...@gmail.com Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: lpro...@hotmail.com • ICQ: 73187508 -- ubuntu-uk@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
