Friday, January 02, 2009

Dell Mini 12 with Ubuntu pre-installed: optimizations and information for owners

This will be an ongoing updated post about our new Dell Mini 12 we just received Dec 29th. We purchased several days after Dell made the ubuntu versions available and the netbook/laptop is serious everything we hoped it would be. However, there are tweaks and optimizations and a number of questions we have when using it, and we will focus on those here. Please please post comments if you have your own advice and tweaks you like on your Dell Mini 12 (obviously, www.ubuntuforums.org is a wonderful research for all ubuntu related tweaks, but this will focus on the Mini 12). i assume some basic knowlege of ubuntu, but something isn't clear please post...

1st order- get rid of the Yahoo toolbar, unless you like it
in your favorite package-manager, remove yahoo-toolbar-extension

2nd order-make it mp3 capable, DVD playback, and get all those necessary codecs not allowed in the US because of our heavily lobbied congresspeople...
install ubuntu-restricted-extras in your favorite package manager
for me, using the default repositories, there was a hitch in aptitude because of package conflicts. i had to remove tzdata-java i think (it didn't seem necessary anyhow) but i can't remember for sure now. but this brings me to the next question...

which repositories? the default repos all start with
http://dell-mini.archive.canonical.com/ubuntu
and are for hardy with most specific to this computer. what about a generic install of ubuntu? well, based on what others on the ubuntuforums say about setting up the SCH Poulsbo chipset with Intrepid, it sounds like there is a regression in Intrepid that could complicate the upgrade, then also the wifi and more with the chipset in this enormous thread. They got Intrepid working on their Mini 12s (they were originally Vista, since they got them before the ubuntu versions were available) but it sounds like they were pulling teeth the whole way... I'll stick with the working configuration Dell gave me, even if it might not be perfect... The only repo I'll add is medibuntu of course. well well, the medibuntu repo doesn't work because the packages must be compiled for the LPIA architecture (low-power intel architecture, which is basically an optimised i386 for the atom cpus). so it appears i'll stick with the default repos for now...

install the package ssh (installs the ssh-server-one of the great things about linux if you ever want to connect between machines...of course, make sure your password isn't 12345)

ssh to another computer is just hanging. whole terminal just sits. strange. oh, after installing libpam-ssh and ssh-krb5 it seems to be goen (these were recommended packages from ssh-client, probably necessary for proper talking? if you have this problem try ssh -v -v -v [connection] for extremely verbose output to see what's happening )

bios update - there is a new version out (A02 right now, my mini 12 has a01) but currently the update is only for windows. some people have discussed how to try it on ubuntu, but right now it seems there isn't an easy way.

To be continued...