Ok, got fed up with the Xubuntu installation and thought there’s time for something new. Atleast clean re-installation was needed.
After short tinkering, I remembered that I had stumbled upon Ubuntu UMPC image at some point, which of course had to be checked. The image had Intrepid Ibex, so I thought that it should be given a chance.
Downloaded the latest image from http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/ubuntu-umpc/intrepid/current/ and had a quick look at the instruction page, as the image is in .img format. From the page you can download Ubuntu Imagewriter for easy GUI based install media creation.
Easiest way is to create the installation media by downloading the image, installing the Ubuntu Imagewriter and then using 1GB USB-stick as media. This image is intended to be “burned” to USB-stick.
Image creation is pretty easy. After you’ve installed the Imagewriter, insert a USB-stick to USB port and launch Imagewriter from terminal: $ sudo imagewriter
Browse the downloaded image, select the correct USB-stick and click “Write to device”. Then wait. After the writing is done, you can close the program and remove the stick.
Now you can test the USB-stick on a computer which can boot from USB device. Do note that this will not work on every computer having USB boot possibility and all wireless cards are not supported out of the box, like the Atheros card in Acer Aspire one. Don’t worry though, it works after installation and working out the driver files for it.
This image is quite stripped due to the limitations of the image size. You’ll get midbrowser, mozilla based internet browser (which I don’t like..), Openoffice.org, Media player etc. Few things probably will be on you installation list as additions I’d assume and apt-get works fine. Overall feeling is happy. I’ve been on the impression that this is slightly faster than my Xubuntu 8.04 installation, but that’s just me 
Quite impressive, I’d say.
Installation works like normal Ubuntu LiveCD installation, so no differences there. After the installation is done, you might want to get rid of the automatic window maximize feature. Open terminal and: $ pkill devilspie
Now opening a program won’t maximize it straight away. To enable the feature, open terminal and: $ devilspie -a /etc/devilspie.cfg
This will enable the window maximization to all open programs/windows.
To get the Wireless work on Acer Aspire one, have a look at my earlier post here. I’d recommend installing nano and mc while you’re on the roll, just to have a fast terminal based text editor which does not require inhuman capabilities and neat terminal based file explorer etc. Firefox might be good to install also, or some other internet browser of you liking.
That’s basically it. Installation is very easy, tweaks for the UMPC world seem fit and thought over.
Tags: 8.10, Acer, Aspire one, Intrepid Ibex, Ubuntu, UMPC
18.01.2009 at 21:46 |
Cool,
Does this look any different than your standard ubuntu-desktop install ?
21.01.2009 at 11:19 |
Hey,
Not much. But you can make it very, very different if you wish =)
21.01.2009 at 17:31 |
I was hoping for a little more info than that. I have not found much about the UMPC image. Yes I know Ubuntu can look like w/e you want it to, but I would like to know what it looks like at default, maybe compare it to the netbook remix etc or your standard Ubuntu desktop.
Currently I have Ubuntu 8.10 on my MSI Wind ( netbook ) are there any advantages to installing the UMPC image, is the image stripping down and optimized for netbooks ? Ubuntu 8.10 on my netbook is not that fast and if the UMPC image is faster lol I would like to give it a shot.
Any more info would be great Thanks
21.01.2009 at 18:45 |
Ah, indeed. Sorry for the lack of better information.
I have to admit, that I have not fiddled around with netbook remix, thus I can’t give any details of the speed. However, I found Ibex UMPC image to be faster than Xubuntu Hardy install.
By default, the desktop of UMPC image is almost exactly the same as with original Ubuntu. Differences start to show when you open up first programs – all windows are maximized and titlebar is stripped out to get more space in use. I believe that you can install the netbook remix desktop frontend into UMPC image also, so that won’t be a downside if one happens to like it.
Advantages that I found was a bit better performance, few good tools out-of-the-box and similarity with the original Ubuntu compared to Xubuntu.
If you wan’t to give the UMPC image a shot, work it out to a USB stick and try it out. Performance will not be that much slower, which is nice.
Hope this helps out a bit, if not, bug me again
21.01.2009 at 22:22 |
Hmm that sounds neat, the top bar on program could benfit because of the low red on netbooks. I have not tried netbook remix as I do not like the look of the gui!
The speed sounds nice, 8.10 ubuntu seems a little slow you know, but it is a netbook. I’ll write it to USB and try.
Thanks