James Ogley

Aspire One - Mixed Feelings

I took another crack at upgrading the RAM in the One this morning. This time, I followed the instructions at Register Hardware. The screws that had caused me problems last time were on board with the whole plan today and I was progressing nicely until, near the end of the process, I had to remove the screw holding the Wireless adapter in place. Yes, that's right, the very component that has been causing me headaches since i purchased the machine and now it was foiling my attempts to upgrade the RAM. It did indeed foil me. I stripped the head of the screw and couldn't get it out. Bah. With that screw in place, I couldn't release the mainboard and so couldn't get at the RAM slot. Bah. I made my way back through the process and put the whole thing back together.

I resumed the One from hibernation and was pleased to see that everything still worked 0 I hadn't snagged a cable or misconnected anything as I put it back together. I was then confused to see that I was connected to the wireless network before I'd plugged the USB dongle in. I don't know what I'd done but somehow, opening the case and focusing a lot of attention on the wireless adapter had made it work. I suspect one of its pins was not correctly connected and my efforts have seated it right. Whatever the reason, it demonstrates that my problem was not a driver issue, so I'm going to close that bug.

So, mixed feelings. Annoyed that I wasn't able to upgrade the RAM but glad the wireless is working. A couple of photos:

The guts of the Aspire One - this is how far I got.

The offending screw (slighly blurry) - any hints on removing it gratefully accepted.

Acer Aspire One continued...

[Ref]

Okay. First the good news, the camera works, it always works, I was stupid and hadn't set it up right in gstreamer-properties. It doesn't work with Ekiga or Cheese but that's a different issue, the camera itself clearly works.

Now, the not-so-good news. I have tried every possible variant of a driver for the wireless adapter out there: every build of MadWiFi, the latest SVN trunk of it and even ndiswrapper, all to no avail. I have a bug open on Novell's bugzilla about ath5k not working (although bugzilla's down at the moment). So, I've restored the Linpus Linux Lite that was pre-installed and that also can't see any wireless networks although among the updates available (and currently downloading) are updates for both NetworkManager and the wireless driver so that may solve that issue. I may have to live with having a USB dongle hanging off it which has its advantages as well as the obvious downside. The massive advantage of course is that the dongle in question has a proper antenna on it so I get pretty good gain - not to be sniffed at by any stretch. The downside is that it takes up one of only three USB ports - one of which contains my bluetooth dongle.

I'm twittering about this among other things of course.

Quick update, bugzilla is back it's bug #478042.

Odd thoughts

If the first bite is with the eye, what if the food looks like it's already been digested?

Acer Aspire One: What doesn't work

Just a quick list of what doesn't work and should (given that the thing is supplied with a Linux distro preinstalled):

Wifi. It uses the ath5k module and should work out the box apparently. No joy, USB dongle employed.
Webcam. Seems to use the uvcvideo module but again, nothing seems to happen. Not something I miss but it would be great to know it worked.

For any other laptop, that would be a really short list but for one sold with Linux, it's two items too long. SLED is apparent coming along nicely on it, I'll be interested to know if that includes full hardware support. Anyway, I'll be filing bugs for these things when I have to time to get some useful information on them.

Other than that, it's a really nice machine, I didn't have to muck about with the X settings like the instructions said I would - GDM works great with it out the box. I suspect I'll like it even more if I manage to do the RAM upgrade. I've not tried any of the expansion slots yet - I've heard that it gets confused if cards are inserted post-boot (seems to defeat the object to me) but we shall see.

I've added a tiny Belkin USB bluetooth dongle too so I can use my bluetooth mouse. I saw guides on the web about installing an internal one but that just seemed daft frankly.

Oh, totally unrelated but I passed 400 'friends' on Facebook today too.

Installing openSUSE 11.1 on the Acer Aspire One

My One arrived this morning. The additional 1GB stick of RAM I'd bought for it had also arrived and I was ready to go. Adding RAM to it is no small task and I couldn't get a couple of the screws in Step One of the Crunch Gear guide out. Decided to leave it rather than render them totally unscrewable - might well return to that at a later point. If not, I'm not seriously out of pocket as RAM is so cheap these days.

Following the instructions on the openSUSE wiki, I booted with my pre-prepared USB drive and hit F12. I partitioned the drive with 20G for /, 3G of swap (so, twice what I'll have if and when I add the extra stick) and the remainder (about 95G) for /home. Other than that, I took defaults for a GNOME install and it's doing it now.

Ordered a Netbook

Today, with a fully charged battery, I got a stunning five minutes use from my laptop before being warned the battery was critical. I looked at the price of a new battery, compared that with the price of an Acer Aspire One netbook, factored in the less-that-reliable keyboard on my current laptop and ordered the One.

As soon as it arrives, I'll be following the instructions to install openSUSE on it.

25 random things about me

This meme has been doing the rounds on Facebook and elsewhere. I posted my 25 things there but here it is:

I adore my wife, she's the most understanding and kindest person I know - she'd have to be I suppose.
I sometimes get frustrated at my son's immaturity - he is 2 so I suppose I ought to expect it!
I never wanted to be a vicar, God sort of ambushed me on that.
Despite my protestations, I am actually proud to an Anglican.
I'm taller than I thought I was.
I use Linux not only because I believe it to be technically superior to Windows but also because I believe in the Free Software movement.
I can program in C, Java, Perl and PHP with varying degrees of suckage.
I failed a Computer Science degree.
Prior to #8, I was kicked off a History degree.
I hold a 2:i in Ministry and am working on an MA in the Theology of Mission and Ministry.
I would like to teach Practical Theology at a theological college at some point.
The only element of my scouse background that I retain is a love of Liverpool Football Club.
I used to play badminton to a decent standard and was also an umpire on occasion.
I am a one-star qualified canoeist.
THIS ITEM REMOVED FOR MY BLOG.
I play poker. I play Texas Hold'em best but also play Omaha, Stud, Razz and lowball draw variants and have played against some of the world's top professionals (and taken money from them).
Poor grammar and punctuation annoy me intensely - as does bad spelling.
I love shoes, I moisturise and I have my hair highlighted but I am straight.
I don't have the first idea of how my car works and I don't want to know.
I like cats but am allergic to too many of them to be able to consider owning one.
I was once invited to appear on a Japanese television programme about internet addiction. This was back in 1995 and they thought I was in the States where it was being made.
I have done TV work for Channel 4.
I listen to BBC Radio Five Live a lot.
I can't stand Christian media, it tends to be a breeding ground for loony theology and practise and has appalling production values.
My favourite album of all time is The Stone Roses by The Stone Roses. I wore my first-time-around cassette version out and it still sounds fresh twenty years on.

Installing openSUSE 11.1 on a Samsung R60plus

Since Amanda got her laptop nearly 14 months ago, I have chronicled the delights (and frustrations) of using openSUSE on what was, at the time, a laptop packed with very new components.

For the story so far, take a look at the adventures with 10.3 and 11.0: blog post/relevant bug report. As with 11.0, I've uploaded a gallery of installing on 11.1. What's interesting is that photo 7 shows my Edimax wifi dongle plugged in - a result of bug #350956 being fixed.

Anyway, first, the bad news. After installing fine on two other machines - my desktop and laptop (both 32bit), I ran into bug #450091 at the end of the install. I sorted it by doing the following:

Boot from the DVD again and start the install.
Abort the install.
In the curses interface, select to start the installation.
Select to boot installed system.
Boot it, it uses the kernel image from the DVD at this point.
Edit /boot/grub/device.map according to bug #462578 comment #12.
Run grub-install.
Reboot without the DVD.

Now, the good news: everything else works fine. The USB wifi dongle is no longer needed as the onboard Atheros adaptor now works with ath5k_pci and actually seems to give better performance under Linux than it does under Windows with the official drivers! Whetther its gain is sufficiently high to represent a usable option remains to be seen but at least it works and any issues now are not software ones. The display is driven very nicely by either the Free radeonhd or non-free ATI drivers. The 64bit Firefox and the Java plugin selected by default (OpenJDK/IcedTea) work fine, as does the 64bit Flash player. The only issue since installing is with F-Spot and is bug #473737.

So, if you're looking for a cheap and fast laptop for openSUSE 11.1, I can now finally recommend the Samsung R60plus. Or at least I would, if Samsung still produced it.

Where it's going wrong for Liverpool this season

New gallery theme

As part of the ongoing work on jamesthevicar.com, of which Possum is a part, working towards a consistent look and colour scheme, I have been working on a theme for Original to go with the rest of the site. In terms of the look, it's based on the supplied dark theme but matches the rest of my site now.

So, check out my new-look gallery! (Other styles are still available)