With the recent Ubuntu 12.04 LTS upgrade I was in the process of upgrading a few other notebooks and noticed that the release schedule for some of the Ubuntu variants (Kubuntu, Xubuntu & Lubuntu) has been brought in line with the main OS branch. So while waiting for the installs on the other machines to finish I thought about updating the EEEPC as well. I tried Xubuntu at first, but did not like the interface (and the default apps pre-installed) and there were hardly any performance gains.

But installing Lubuntu was a different story. I am very impressed by the LXDE desktop environment and the UI performance. The responsiveness of the UI is remarkably better than other desktop managers on a small netbook. And you still get the underlying strengths of the Ubuntu (Debian) based package management in it’s latest revision. That means most applications come packaged and there’s PPA’s for the rest.

Looks Lubuntu’s the new favourite. Hat tip to the Lubuntu maintainers and LXDE developers – excellent work in producing a no-frills but very functional, decent looking & usable desktop environment for devices that are getting a bit older … !

But having stumbled across Darktable (http://darktable.org/) I think I might have found a worthwile package.

Install on Ubuntu:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pmjdebruijn/darktable-release
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install darktable

sudo apt-get install powertop

For some more detailed suggestions this is a good start: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/PowerManagement/ReducedPower

After casually using it for a few nights of use I am personally not surprised that HP decided to ditch this product. Compared to the current Tablet leaders the Touchpad is miles behind both Android and iOS and HP would have had to spend  serious money to even get close to the current functionality of the competition. And you can take a bet that both of these will not remain static. I was actually hoping that WebOS can be a serious competitor to the current duopoly, but after using this thing I have to say that it is not even close.

However I still think the AUD149 I spent for the 32GB model are actually well spent. Since WebOS has always been a very open platform built on a Linux base I knew it would not be a major effort to run other Open Source OS’s on this device. There is already a whole bunch of people working on a full Android port (see TouchDroid and XDA Devs).

But since I already have an Android Tab (Samsung Galaxy Tab 7”) I am more interested in other alternatives at this stage. As a current Ubuntu user I started looking around and after comparing some of the existing efforts found that the guys at Preware (WebOS Internals) have already done an excellent job in getting Ubuntu to run on top of WebOS, rather than replacing WebOS entirely. Which at the current stage of this seems to most reasonable choice.

The installation was a very smooth process from an existing Ubuntu machine (Windows users might find it a little more challenging).

I have documented the process in case it’s useful for others. This assumes a WIFI only 32 GB Touchpad as sold in Australia. Detailed instructions for all devices (such as other WebOS phones) are avaialble on the WebOS Internals Wiki. Hat-tip to these guys for the excellent work.

Install Preware

1. Set Device into Developer Mode: just type “webos20090606” into the ‘Just Type’ box on the home screen (once you have installed Preware you can install a patch to permanently un-hide the Developer Mode icon).
2. Check that you have Java JRE installed
3. Download latest version of Preware WebOS Quickinstall
4. Connect the Touchpad to your computer with the USB cable, and select “Just Charge” (do not select USB Drive)
5. Run WebOS Quick Install JAR. WebOS Quick Install will download and install the Novacom Driver for you if not yet installed.
6. Click the globe icon (third button on the right)
7. Search for Preware (in the Applications tab) and install

Apart from Preware itself I also installed OpenSSH and a few other useful packages from the WebOS Internals Homebrew Apps

Install MetaDoctor

Again the instructions here are for the Wifi Touchpad 32GB – check http://www.webos-internals.org/wiki/Application:MetaDoctor for details on other variants. The current version of MetaDoctor can be found here.

Pre-requisites: check if git is installed (apt-get install git)

git clone git://git.webos-internals.org/tools/meta-doctor.git
cd meta-doctor
mkdir downloads
cd downloads
wget http://palm.cdnetworks.net/rom/touchpad/p302r0d08012011/wifip302rod/webosdoctorp302hstnhwifi.jar
mv webosdoctorp302hstnhwifi.jar webosdoctorp302hstnhwifi-3.0.2.jar
cd ..
vim MAKEFILE
---------------------------------------
Uncomment:
ENABLE_DEVELOPER_MODE = 1
AUTO_INSTALL_PREWARE  = 1
ENABLE_TESTING_FEEDS  = 1
VAR_PARTITION_SIZE    = 8GB
SWAP_PARTITION_SIZE   = 512MB
EXT3FS_PARTITION_SIZE = 8GB

Changes:
DEVICE = touchpad
CARRIER = wifi
---------------------------------------
make all

The compile process takes a few minutes – COFFEETIME !!!

Edit: If you have a 16GB Touchpad make sure you reduce “VAR_PARTITION_SIZE” and “EXT3FS_PARTITION_SIZE” to fit with the smaller Flash Memory size (thanks to @Dan & @bob for comments)

cd build/touchpad-p302hstnh-wifi-3.0.2/
java -jar webosdoctorp302hstnhwifi-3.0.2.jar

For those who just want to run the MetaDoctor install without compiling it as described below I have made the JAR file available for download. As always with these things – use at your own risk. EDIT: Removed JAR due to licensing issue. You will HAVE to compile yourself.

Create Ubuntu partition

After the reboot when finishing the MetaDoctor install just run novaterm with the USB cable connected and mount the ext3fs partition

mount -o remount,rw /
mkdir -p /media/ext3fs
echo "/dev/mapper/store-ext3fs /media/ext3fs ext3   noatime,data=writeback   0   0" >> /etc/fstab
mount -a

Install Ubuntu

On the Touchpad run the Preware App and install the following

• Xecutah
• XServer
• Ubuntu 11.04 Chroot

Start Xecutah and run (in the order listed)

1. XServer
2. Xterm
3. Ubuntu Chroot

You will have a Ubuntu commandline prompt and can use apt-get from here on to install any ubuntu app (provided there is an ARM port for it).

apt-get install lxde
startlxde

TIPS: if your keyboard covers some of the X Window keep the keyboard icon on the soft-keys pressed and choose the XS size.

Enjoy !

I came across QuteCom (formerly WengoPhone) and from first testing it seems to work quite well. The install is easy as it’s part of the Ubuntu Community Software (Universe) and that means it can be installed via apt-get, Software Center or Synaptic.

So far the early testing has been very positive and the interface seems quite workable as well as having a number of other instant messaging options available.

Unfortunately this is not yet a very straight process on most Operating Systems and Ubuntu is no difference.

Edit: all the commands need to be run with root privileges. so either run “sudo su” or prefix all with “sudo ” (thanks to Paul for the comment below)

Remove Evolution (thanks to Grant Likely for the comment below)

apt-get remove evolution evolution-indicator

Install Gnome-Gmail

apt-get install gnome-gmail

Create entry for gnome-gmail using your preferred text editor and copy the following into the created file:

vim /usr/share/indicators/messages/applications/gnome-gmail
#insert this line
/usr/share/applications/gnome-gmail.desktop

Edit this file: /usr/share/applications/gnome-gmail.desktop and add the following line:

MimeType=application/mbox;message/rfc822;x-scheme-handler/mailto

Update desktop database for Gnome Gmail to be recognised as an email program:

update-desktop-database

Go to System Settings –> Preferred Applications and choose gnome-gmail as the default e-mail client

Log out for the changes to the indicator to take effect (or kill gnome-indicator process).

Having tried several different Linux SIP clients (Ekiga, Twinkle, …) but all discarded them because of weird UI’s and/or problems with stability I noticed that there is a Linux version of XLite available. Unfortunately on current versions of Ubuntu (10.04) it needs a deprecated version of a library.

Download XLite Linux: http://www.counterpath.com/x-lite-3.0-for-linux-download.html

Dowload libstdc++.so.5: http://packages.debian.org/lenny/i386/libstdc++5/download

[you will need root permissions for all of the below]

Enjoy calling from your Ubuntu machine !

EDIT: Since upgrading to Ubuntu 11 (Natty) I have switched to QuteCom

One thing I don’t need on the road (as a matter of fact on none of my equipment) is having to install & maintain some client/server mail client. Here is a workable solution to have your browser default ‘mailto:’ links to Google Apps.

Howto

System –> Preferences –> Preferred Applications

Chrome:

perl -MURI::Escape -e '$to = shift;$to =~ s/^mailto://i;exec("chromium-browser", "https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.tld/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&cmid=22&to=".URI::Escape::uri_escape($to) );' '%s'

Firefox:

perl -MURI::Escape -e '$to = shift;$to =~ s/^mailto://i;exec("firefox", "https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.tld/?view=cm&fs=1&tf=1&cmid=22&to=".URI::Escape::uri_escape($to) );' '%s'

Note: do not forget to replace ‘yourdomain.tld’ with your actual Google Apps domain

Here is the link to the original blog entry by David Davis (xantus77): http://xantus.vox.com/library/post/howto-use-gmail-for-mailto-links-linuxubuntu.html (Kudos !)

However – in terms of Operating Systems I am now on my 3rd OS (despite initially telling myself that I will stick with the default and avoid tinkering) and it looks like I still have not found what I am looking for.

With the XP version of the EEEPC not even on the list of choices because of the sluggish performance on models I tried I survived on the default Xandros install for about 1 month until it’s ‘Easy Interface’ just got too painful in the number of clicks it took to get anywhere.

So I changed the Xandros install to ‘Advanced Mode’ which made some things easier, however the lack of any locking mechanism and the fact that installing nearly anything that was not officially supported (via other Debian packages) broke something else, forced me to look for a more standard Linux distro.

Eventually I chose Ubuntu for EEE (now called Easy Peasy – ???) As I have started to use Ubuntu on my VMWare desktops for some cloud-app development. The thought of having the same OS on the desktop and netbook had a lot of appeal. Next to CentOS (our Server platform of choice) I don’t want to deal with more distros than absolutely necessary. However in hindsight this turned out to be missing the key differences between both platforms. They are after all very different animals. While it was nice to have the same interface on both Desktop and Netbook, running Ubuntu on the EEE ended up being painfully slow and the WIFI support was pretty ordinary (which is not something I could say about Xandros). Another issue for me was that the support Huawei USB Wireless Modem E220 was sometimes unreliable and took ages to get working. I often had to reboot the machine to get the Wireless modem working again. And time is a very valuable commodity for me these days.

Eventually (after some research) I ended up with PuppyLinux and at first glance I have to say it was the fastest user interface I have ever seen on the EEE. There are a few oddities, such as running everything as a privileged user (same as Xandros) and as having Seamonkey as it’s browser instead of Firefox (which is a bit annoying for me as I have a few very useful Firefox add-ons I like on the netbook as well). But at first I thought I have found what I had been looking for.

Puppy Linux 4.12

If it wouldn’t be for the problems with network drivers (and how much use is the fastest UI, best functionality without Internet access on a Netbook) I would have dumped all others and stayed with PuppyLinux. Its startup time, speed, no-frills UI is exactly what I need while ‘on the run’. But after a number of hours of tinkering with drivers and various patches reported to work on other EEE versions I gave up. Getting WPA encryption on the WLAN side and the Huawei E220 to work was just too time consuming. Note: I tried to get Puppy 4.12 working. There are some ‘Puplets‘ specificly for EEE’s but mainly for 700 series using and much older codebase .

Currently I am (reluctantly) back with Xandros (although the XEPC version of it) and using PuppyLinux as a ‘secondary choice’ from the internal storage drive in the hope the wireless driver problems will be resolved at some stage. I would love to hear from somebody that has it working on the EEE 900 as I really like this puppy. And I’d be even quite happy to donate some dollars for this purpose.

Conclusions

• There is not yet an ideal distro for me
• PuppyLinux without the networking issues would be the distro of choice
• If you don’t have much time – stick with the default – the amount of time you burn finding something that works will by FAR outweigh the time savings in a fast UI (if you can actually find it)
• And (just in case if Asus is listening and wants some advice) – look at what these guys are doing with Puppy – this is what an alternative Netbook OS should be like – FAST boot, FAST UI, No-frills ….
• If you want to be as close to your desktop with ‘Windows-like ‘ UI – stick with the Original – at least then you can take the slow UI as a fact of life

Update: just found this link to an excellent article in the recent Linux Magazine on alternative OS´s for netbooks