Tag Archives: Linux
Create a Linux Tablet Distribution
A Linux Distribution with tablet solely in mind is missing, there have been a couple of recent attempts such as Enlightenments Tablet Spin and Meego’s Tablet UX which is still being worked on for the recent version 1.2. So instead of waiting around and letting your tablet PC collect dust, how about you create one yourself following a few simple steps. So lets begin shall we? For this tutorial I’m going to be using my Viewpad 10 as my Tablet of choice as well as using Ubuntu 11.04 as a base for my custom Linux Tablet Operating System. I am also assuming that your hardware is compatible with Linux.
What you’ll need:
- A Tablet
- A Linux Distribution
- USB Ports
- 1GB or Larger USB Stick
- USB Keyboard
- Wireless Internet Connection
Install Linux on your Tablet:
I’m not going to go into too much detail into this, all I’m going to say in this step is if you don’t know how to already create a bootable USB stick check my previous blog post out to see all the popular available applications which will create a bootable Linux Live USB Stick. Once you’ve got a bootable USB stick plug it into your Tablet and select your USB stick in the BIOS in order to boot from the USB stick. Once the USB stick has booted go to your Linux Distribution’s of choice installer. From here follow the steps which are displayed on the screen. Once all the steps have been completed restart your device and make sure you have switched back to booting from your primary hard drive.
Installing Gnome-Shell
Gnome-Shell is a fantastic interface for tablet users such as you and I. It supports finger scrolling through the Applications menu and many more Touch Friendly features. If you’ve chosen Fedora 15 as your Tablet OS base then you’re luckily to have it pre-installed as the default interface. If your Linux Distribution of choice has it included in it’s repository then you can install gnome-shell package just like you would with any other package (Ubuntu 11.10 users can use “sudo apt-get install gnome-shell” to install it.
If you are a Ubuntu 11.04 user like myself then you will have to add the Gnome3-Team PPA. To add the Gnome3-Team Personal Package Archive make sure you’re connected to the internet and then open up your terminal (This is where the USB Keyboard comes in handy) and enter these following commands:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get dist-upgrade
sudo apt-get gnome-shell
Log out in order to return to the GDM then select the Gnome-Shell session (The name varies it might be labelled as “Gnome-Shell” “GNOME” but just keep trying each option if you are unsure which one to pick and you’ll probably find it eventually.)
If you find that you are coming across some strange theming issues when using Gnome-Shell in Ubuntu 11.04 then just enter in these two commands:
sudo apt-get remove gnome-accessibility-themes
sudo apt-get install gnome-themes-standard
Then reboot! (Thanks to this useful thread at the ubuntuforums)
If the problem still occurs you might need to manually select the default Gnome-Shell theme, Adwaita, you can do this by useful gnome-tweak-tool which can be installed by using this command:
sudo apt-get install gnome-tweak tool
To run gnome-tweak-tool simply open up the ALT+F2 run command box and type in “gnome-tweak-tool” once the application appears click on “Interface” on the left hand-side menu in the application. From here select the first drop-down box labelled “Gtk+ Theme” make sure “Adwaita” is selected, same goes for the “Cursor Theme” drop-down box. That should fix any theme issues.
FIX: Downgrade GDM (Ubuntu 11.04 users only)
For some strange reason version 3.0.2 of the GNOME Display Manager refuses to Automatically login, this function is vital for tablet users since we don’t have a physical keyboard so we won’t be able to enter in our password every time we log into the operating system. Luckily the previous version of GDM (Version 2.3.2 can be used instead) to downgrade the GDM we need to go into “Synaptic” from here search for GDM in the search bar. Once you have found the package select it and then go to the “Package” tab then go down to the “Force Version…” option, make sure you select 2.3.2 of GDM then lock that version using the option on the “Package” tab. Once you’ve done all that click the big “Apply” button in Synaptic package manager and close it down. This should allow you to automatically log into Gnome-Shell.
(Thanks to this post)
Installing Useful Applications
There are some very useful applications to install on any Linux operated tablet devices, for example in order to enter text into your device you will be needing a on screen keyboard (They are also called Virtual Keyboards) Linux doesn’t have a wide range but I have found “Florence” to be a very useful virtual keyboard since it has features such as Auto-Hide, Transparency, custom colours, etc. Unfortunately when I tried using it in Fedora 15 it refused to work. Luckily, a group of developers have been packaging Meego’s keyboard, Maliit for Fedora! Follow this link in order to try out Maliit for yourself on Fedora.
This next application isn’t a tablet-specific program but is very useful for any gnome-shell user. If you missed the suggest previously in this tutorial then you should install gnome-tweak-tool it allows you to do some useful tweaks in gnome-shell from one click, such as allowing desktop icons, showing the day of the week in the clock, showing the Close, Minimize and Maximize icons and so much more.
If you are a Mozilla Firefox user then make sure to check out the Grab and Drag add-on. This will allow you to scroll through webpages by using your finger, if you are a Google Chrome user then check out ChromeTouch which does a similar job in Chrome.
Tablet Tweaks
In order to get an even more better experience using Linux on a tablet you can do some tweaking with the interface. For example, one useful tablet tweak is to enable holding down your finger to right click. To do this in Gnome-Shell simply click on the “Accessibility” indicator then select the bottom option labelled as “Universal Access Settings” from here, select the last tab in the application window “Pointing and Clicking” and switch the second button to “ON” which has the title “Simulated Secondary Click” make sure to set the acceptance delay to “Short”.
Note: If it doesn’t work straight away restart!
So I hope this guide has come in useful and has given your tablet device a new life as a fully fledged Linux-operated tablet! If you have found a useful tip or a program useful on a tablet then make sure to share your suggestion with everyone in the comment box below!
Have fun!!
How to create a Linux Live USB
I’ve had a few people asking me this question for a while now, so I’m just going to post a short, simple guide on some of the best programs to use in order to put a .iso or .img file onto a USB in order to create a Live USB which can be used to boot a Live image of say, Ubuntu onto a computer.
My personal favourite application for putting a .iso file onto a USB is UNetbootin, it features functions like downloading Iso which can then be used to put straight onto a USB device, or you can similar to just select the iso you’ve already downloaded before using the application. Once you’ve selected how and what iso you want to put on your USB you just select your USB Drive Letter (E:/F:/G:/etc) then all you need to do then is click “Next” and it’ll start to work it’s magic! The time it takes varies depending on how large the .iso file is and how fast your computer is but normally it shouldn’t take any longer than a couple of minutes.
UNetbootin is not only available for Windows, it has packages to use on all major Linux Distributions, in case you feel like a change of Linux Flavour.
Another alternate is “Universal USB Installer” it does the same role as UNetbootin for has a more of a step-by-step wizard interface. I use this when the .iso file doesn’t work with UNetbootin for whatever reason (For example, I always have issues with trying to put Fedora 14 onto a USB Stick with UNetbootin).
Once you reach the menu as shown in the screenshot above you can then select what you are wanting to put on your USB, for example, Ubuntu. Then it should automatically find the file, if it doesn’t then you can simply browse to the file. Like UNetbootin it also has the option to download the select Linux Distribution through the program itself instead of you needing to do it manually.
Unlike UNetbootin this program is only available for Windows. Again, this program takes a similar time to UNetbootin when it comes to transferring the file over to the USB device in order to create a “Live USB”.
Not all Linux Distributions come in .iso format, for example Chrome OS and Meego (Netbook Version) come in the .img format. This is similar to the .iso format but requires a different kind of program. I suggest when using Windows to use a program called “Win32 Disk Imager”.
The application itself is just a simple Window. You Select your .img file by browsing via the blue folder icon, select your device drive letter from the dropdown menu (With the ability to refresh in case you started the program before inserting your USB Device) then just hit the “Write” button, sit back and watch it progress. Once it’s finished it will display a little message saying “Done” in the lower left corner of the Application.
So there is just a small handful of useful application to get a Linux Distribution onto a USB device to create a Live USB. There are probably plenty more out there that do the same or similar job. If you have a favourite make sure you mention it in the comment section below!
Which Linux Distributions work on the Viewpad 10?
Does your touchscreen only work with two fingers pressed down? Or does it not work at all? Don’t worry! There is plenty of solutions! The problem is that you are using a Linux Distribution with an old version of the Linux Kernel. A couple of months back, I made a tutorial on how to get the Viewpad 10 touch screen working on Ubuntu 10.10 Maverick Meerkat. This involved downloading the ENAC Multi-touch drivers from their Git repository. Well in the recent version of the Linux Kernel (2.6.38) the ENAC Multi-touch drivers are included this means that your touch screen will function correctly straight out of the box!
Some Linux Distributions currently already running on version 2.6.38 of the Linux Kernel, here is a quick list of the Distributions that do:
- Ubuntu 11.04
- Fedora 15 Beta
- Fuduntu 14.9 (After running an update)
If you are a Ubuntu user but don’t want to make the leap to Ubuntu 11.04 just yet and are running on Ubuntu Lucid Lynx or Maverick Meerkat still you can grab the version 2.6.38 of the Linux Kernel from a PPA repository, this also includes Linux Mint users, Bodhi Linux users, Peppermint OS users and anyone else who is running off of a Ubuntu derivative. To install Linux Kernel 2.6.28 simply enter these couple of commands into your terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kernel-ppa/ppasudo apt-get updatesudo apt-get install linux-headers-2.6.38-1-generic linux-image-2.6.38-1-generic
After that, simply reboot your Viewpad 10 and you should have a working Touchscreen! If you want to double check to see if the Kernel installation worked correctly, then simply reopen your terminal and enter this command:
uname -a
Also, Viewpad 10 users who are a fan of Android you will be glad to know that Viewsonic have updated the Viewpad 10’s Android image to a more recent version of Android, 2.2 (Froyo) you can grab the download link from their site.
So hopefully you’ve got a bit of an insight on what is required for getting Linux to running correctly on the Viewpad. I can’t wait to get writing my next tutorial since it will be all to do with getting Meego running smoothly on your Viewpad 10.
But for now, go have a play with the Linux Distributions I have suggested on your Viewpad 10, make sure to comment below if you’ve found some great Tablet-Specific apps, Florence and Onboard are great Virtual Keyboards (Hint hint). 
Me and My Eee – Peppermint OS Ice
Hello everyone and welcome to the latest review from Me and my Eee. Today I’ll be reviewing Peppermint OS Ice Edition. Peppermint OS claims to be light on the processor, so that’s great news for my netbook which is a Eeepc 904HD loaded with a 900MHz CPU. This is also aimed to be a “Cloud” OS so expect a few web-based programs!
So this Linux Distribution sounds perfect for my netbook even more perfect than my favourite, Fedora, Linux distribution. So I hit the download button on their site for Peppermint OS Ice Edition. There are 2 different versions of Peppermint OS. The default one which uses Firefox or the Ice Version which uses Chromium instead. The .iso image of Peppermint OS Ice is under 500mb which is also great considering the more popular Linux distributions are around 700mb such as Ubuntu and Fedora.
Once Perppermint OS finished downloading it was straight to putting the liveCD onto a usb stick using the Universal Linux Installer. I booted from the USB Stick and had a play around using the live session option. It looked like it was based on Linux Mint 9, the latyest version of Linux Mint, which is great since a lot of people gave Linux Mint 9 great reviews on how it performed on a Netbook. It also looks like Peppermint OS is using LXDE as it’s desktop enviroment, which is one of the lightest Desktop Enivroments for Linux.
I continued to have a play around on the Live Session for a few minutes until I decided that I would definately use this as a main OS on my Netbook. The installer was very simple like most GUI Linux Installers, you just enter the similar details such as creating a Username/Password, setting the time and date and also setting up the parition table for your hard drive.
Peppermint OS didn’t take long at all to install, on their websdite it states that the full install size is under 4GB so that’s great news for the owners of older Eeepc’s with small hard drives.
The screenshot above is my current desktop, had to tweak around with te settings a bit since it did look a tad bit ugly, I applied a new walpaper my trusty android wallpaper and also tweaked around with the task bar since the “Panel Preferences” menu has many options to mess around with.
The next thing I did was take a look at what programs were avaible from the Menu panel, like I had said before there is a lot of Web-Apps such as Facebook, Google Docs and YouTube for example and no signs of big programs such as OpenOffice on here.
If you were a fan of Web-based applications Peppermint OS offers you to easily make your own using it’s program called “Ice” and enter in details such as URL, Title and Icons to use for the application.
Obviously there are some programs that are actually installed on here such as Leafpad which is a great text editior and I thought looked so much better than other Linux-based Text Editors such as Gedit and was also a bit easier to navigate around.
If your Netbook has the hard drive space like mine, for example, you can also install applications to save on your hard drive using the Software Centre from Linux Mint 9. Linux Mint’s Software Centre is excellent, it has catagorized each application so it’s easy to navigate through each listing of applications as well as offering users the chance to review each program so it gives other user’s a good overview about the program before they download and try it out themselves.
Conclusion
Peppermint OS ice is definately a great OS. It’s very easy to get to grips with even if you’re a Windows-based user! It’s very fast and very light on my Netbook’s spec, which is perfect for my needs, it’s very quick and snappy. Even though it looks visually a bit ugly it doesn’t take long to give it a “cool” finish. If I had an extra “E” in my out of 5 “E” rating, I’d definately give it to this OS. But unfortunately I only rate it out of 5 so… I’m going to give Peppermint OS Ice edition a very big 5 out of 5 E’s!
EEEEE
So that’s it for now until next time, if you haven’t noticed already I’ve changed the structure of the “Me and My Eee” article this time by removing the sub-headings through the article this should hopefully make my articles flow a lot more. Next time, I’ll be finally giving Windows-based users a run down of the top 10 programs to use on a Netbook so stay tuned for that!
Me and My Eee – Fedora 13 Review
Now before I begin, I’ve been holding off from installing Fedora 13 since I have been waiting for an update to Ahmad Abdel-Yaman’s custom Fedora Netbook Kernel. I’ll talk about that a bit later on in the review. Anyway, lets begin:
My Experience
So I’ve been using Fedora 13 on my Netbook as a main Operating System for a while now. Once again, I installed Fedora via USB Booting the live image, though this time I believed I used the offical Fedora Live USB Creator since I find that Fedora hass a few issues with Ubootnetin. I had no real issue with the process of creating a live USB with the problem, but it is worth noting that it’s 28MB compared to Jolicloud’s USB Creator which is only 7MB. (Jolicloud is a cloud OS based off of Ubuntu) So the creator itself is a little bloated, in my opinion.
Anyway the installation is fairly straight forward, it’s got a nice clean GUI and you just go through each step such as selecting your language, keyboard layout, location and partition layout etc. After that installation process has finished you will be then greeted with a “First time usage” screen, here you’ll be able to set up user accounts like your root user, time and date and you even have the choice to send off a profile of what computer hardware you are using. This is useful for the devdelopers at the Fedora Project since it gives them a good indication what hardware is still widely being used.
After that you have finally finished setting up your Fedora OS. The screenshot below is a screenshot of my current fedora desktop on my Eeepc, I’ve customised it to my liking by giving it a cool Android wallpaper and changed the panel images so it gives it a nice transparent appearance.
The Pro
The one thing I love about Fedora on a Netbook is the fan’s contribution improving the experience of Fedora on a Netbook, specially a fan called Ahmad Abdel-Yaman. He is the developer of a custom kernel for Fedora that is designed for Netbooks. His Kernel has been useful for Fedora Netbook users for the past 3 or so releases of Fedora.
This custom Kernel for Netbooks remove uneccesary files from the offical Netbook Kerenel so it reduces the actual size of the Kerenel as well as drastically improving boot times. On his website that can be found here, states that Fedora 13 with the stock kerenel takes about 27 Seconds to boot on his Eee Pc 901 and the reported size of the stock kerenel is 20MB.With his Netbook Kerenel it takes about 18 Seconds to boot and only takes up 7.2MB so as you can see it’s made quite a difference.
The programs that come installed on Fedora are fairly interesting even though there isn’t a lot of them. One program I found useful was the Twitter Client called Pino. this is similar to Ubuntu 10.04′s Twitter Client that is pre-installed called Gwibber.
One program that I was surpised to find on here was a Project Management program for Gantt etc, it has a much easier/cleaner layout than compared to Microsoft Project 2002 which I have used for a subject at my college for Project Management.
The Cons
This is another solid Linux distribution that I find hard to find any major flaws with. The only issue I have really found when using Fedora is these annoying error messages that take up quite a lot of screen space, especially on a netbook. I think there are a few hacks around to disable the service, but it’s just not worth the fuss since it only happens now and then.
Conclusion
Like I said previously this is yet another great solid Linux distribution, even though that Fedora 13 was delayed twice it was definately worth the wait!
I’m going to give Fedora 13… 5 E’s out of 5.
EEEEE
That’s it for now, I hope you’ve enjoyed the return of my “Me and my Eee” project. So what’s next? Well I’m going to run down the top 10 programs for a Windows Netbook, how to optimize a Windows Netbook and also I’ve recently discovered Peppermint OS which sounds very exciting so I’m going to give that a wiz.
Me and My Eee – Eeebuntu 3.0 Review
Introduction
Hello there, welcome to the very first edition of “Me and my Eee” a project I’ve been planning on doing for some time now. (Was even thinking about making a separate blog for it) This project is mainly about my personal reviews on certain topics surrounding the tiny machines called Netbooks. I fell in love with these underpowered machines ever since I laid my eyes on them, they’re great!
These articles aren’t going to be your bog standard review but more of a “Journal” approach to things such as Operating Systems (Yes, I’m an OS Hopper), cool accessories or any awesome Netbook oriented software and games, just so people can have a better idea at what the daily experience is like before they try it out for themselves (I’m sure you don’t want to waste your time and money, do you?) Before I begin I’d like to introduce you to my Eee.
My 904HD Model Eeepc, an Eeepc if you already didn’t know is Asus’ brand of Netbooks. Here are the basic specs of my Netbook:
80GB Hard Drive
900 MHz Intel Celeron Processor
2GB of RAM (Upgraded from 1GB)
Intel 915GM Graphics Card
So as you can see it’s not too bad for your average Netbook. It’s not designed to be a high performance gaming machine but a portable device to read the odd email, play a few classic games, chat and browse the internet. You get the idea. Anyway on with the show!
My Experience
So this is Eeeubuntu 3.0, based off of Ubuntu 8.04 but more directed at Netbook users, if you don’t know already Ubuntu is one of the most Linux Distributions available to download for free. I’ve used Eeeubuntu 3.0 for a while in the past before and have recently reinstalled it since I’m in need of a Windows 7 product key. So it’s was sort of Substitute for the time being… Well that’s what I thought until I actually started to mess around with it for an hour of two.
Once I installed it (In a matter of minutes) I decided to have a little play around with it, just customizing a few things and just giving it my personal touch and of course doing what I like to do best, optimize and remove crap from the OS in order to give it a faster boot time and of course make it more responsive when actually using the Operating System.
The above screenshot is what my desktop currently looks like, First thing first was too change the background image to a cute “Netbook Resolution Optimized” image (1024×600) of Lego Stars Wars… On Bikes! I did a few more cool things like implement the Aero Snap features from Windows 7 into Eeeubuntu 3.0 using this guide.
After I’ve finished designing it to my liking and installing the essential programs for my daily usage such as Google Chrome and LAMPP, a Linux version of the software XAMPP, I gave it a quick reboot, 45 Seconds on battery mode, not bad at all really, it’s tolerable. There is definitely more stuff to take out to reduce that boot time too, I just did the usual things like stop any unwanted start-up programs, removed the boot splash screen, etc.
The Pros
Eeeubuntu 3.0 is definitely worth getting over the standard version of Ubuntu, my personal reason behind this is that the pre-installed software that comes with Eeeubuntu 3.0 is so much better for me, personally, than what comes with the bog standard Ubuntu, such as aMSN, a Linux Client for Windows Live Messenger, the interface is very similar to the official client, especially if you download the MSN Version 7 skin. It also comes with a pre-installed application that gives you control over various hardware inside your netbook by a single click of a button! Such as CPU Scaling, Enabling/Disabling hardware such as WiFi and Webcam which is very useful when you’re on battery power and you want to save every last bit of energy.
Another little bit that I love about this OS is that the developers have made a dock to launch all your favourite applications straight from your desktop using just one single GNOME panel, this is such a great idea since it means you won’t have to download any fancy programs such as Avant Window Navigator.
The Cons
The only major con is that it’s quite old now, a few of the repositories are now dead, but don’t worry there is a forth version currently in development, you can download it by going to their site at: www.eeebuntu.org
Conclusion:
If you want a clean, simple and yes USEFUL Linux Distribution for your everyday netbook needs then this is perfect! Especially if you don’t have the time to customize a standard Ubuntu installation in order to make it friendlier for a Netbook.
I’m going to give Eeeubuntu 3.0 a perfect 5 E’s out of Five!
EEEEE
Not bad for the first OS to be reviewed! Let’s see if other Operating Systems can live up to Eeeubuntu 3.0!
And that’s all from me today, folks! Sorry it’s a bit of a mismatched review, but hey give me a break it’s my very first review ;] Hopefully the articles will get a better structure once I get writing more. Tomorrow, I’ll hopefully be downloading the latest Ubuntu Beta and see how that performs on a Netbook and hopefully have a review up next weekend. But until then…
OVER AND OUT!
