These instructions assume you have the EeeXubuntu Live CD or USB Stick and want to install to the SSD.
Note that installation without swap space is controversial. Xubuntu claim their Live CD - which runs without swap - requires only 128Mb of RAM. The same page recommends 256Mb of RAM for an installed system, presumably with swap. This suggests that swap is not necessary on a system with 512Mb RAM.
The author of the following no-swap section said
but mkrishnan states, in this thread:
Swap space is required if you would like to hibernate your EeePC.
Why enable swap? Enabling swap allows hibernation (suspend-to-disk). It also allows the occasional use of large amounts of data from applications.
Why enabling swap is not a bad idea on SSD based devices? The pre-installed Xandros linux does not enable swap, so it is a valid question to ask. There is a certain amount of disinformation about swap on SSD (solid state drive) based devices. The kernel will not make use of the swap unless applications are run on inappropriately large amounts of data. Code pages are only cached to RAM and these RAM pages are freed if required for dirty pages.
Is hibernating particularly efficient on the eeePC? Hibernating to swap works in a particularly efficient way, whereby user application data pages are paged out to swap; all unmodified pages (i.e. disk cache and code pages) are thrown away; and only the kernel data state is bundled up, and written to swap. Upon resume pages which are not required for write are retained in swap (which is why swap usage is shown in the system monitoring tray following resume, but there are no disk writes).
On shutdown cached kernel data (e.g. file tables/inodes) have to be flushed to SSD anyway and cold boot up also spatters small writes around the disk. Therefore there is little additional wear on the SSD (depending on your usage profile there might even be less) as a result of using swap and hibernate.
When not to use swap: If you update your device to 1G or 2G of RAM then you should only need swap space for hibernation. Unfortunately this can cause problems. To reliably hibernate, you need at least as much swap as onboard RAM. You may have to either dedicate more of your Flash space to swap or abandon the ability to hibernate. In this case, you may decide not to use swap and just use normal shutdown or sleep mode.
Getting hibernate to work The “Hibernate” button in the logout screen may be hidden as follows: click the Applications button → Settings → Sessions and Startup Settings. Check “Prompt on logout” and uncheck “Show hibernate button”.
Due to a bug in Ubuntu's Ubiquity install manager (details), hibernate may not work OOTB in some installations. Although the swap file is written correctly on hibernation, this overwrites the swap partition's signature so that it is no longer visible and cannot be mounted.
How to fix a broken system: You may have to run your system in a special mode in order to recover a broken system:
mount / -o remount,rw
(after doing that i couldn't see what i typed, but it actually worked : try
ls
to see!)
— Djakoni 2008/03/31 05:55 I had to do this in order to repair my broken system due to an hibernation test without having modified my grub entries
To get it working, first fix the damage done by the hibernation progress:
sudo mkswap /dev/sdaX sudo swapon -cv /dev/sdaX
(sdaX being your swap partition of course, e.g. sda2 or sda5 on the internal flash memory, or sdbX, e.g. sdb2, on an SD card)
Next step is to edit and fix the grub boot command:
sudo mousepad /boot/grub/menu.lst
Find the right entry for your eeeXubuntu installation:
title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic quiet
and add “resume=/dev/sdaX” (sda2, sda5, sdb2, etc) to the longest line:
title Ubuntu 7.10, kernel 2.6.22-14-generic root (hd0,0) kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.22-14-generic root=UUID=xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxx resume=/dev/sdaX ro quiet splash initrd /boot/initrd.img-2.6.22-14-generic quiet
NB: Hibernate will not work on USB devices other than the internal flash memory as they tend to get dismounted by the standard installation in the hibernation process.
— Djakoni 2008/03/31 05:45 Hibernate w/ SD card not tested yet (my eeePC has begun hibernation then returned to X, and here I am)
It is also possible to install without a swap partition and create a swap file after installation. This is more flexible because it's easier to create / delete / resize files than repartition the SSD. However this process is not supported by the installer, it is much harder to hibernate, and the following instructions have only limited testing.
dd if=/dev/zero of=/swapfile bs=1M count=512
mkswap /swapfile
/swapfile swap swap defaults
swapon -a
$ cat /proc/swaps Filename Type Size Used Priority /swapfile file 524280 44636 -1
If you want to resize the swapfile later, disable it
swapoff -a
then delete and recreate it.
You may also wish to periodically relocate the swap file to maximise the SSD life. You can do this with a swap file, provided you have over 512Mb free space. Just create the new swap file before you delete the old one.
Hibernation can only be achieved by installing the uswsusp package and hacking the Ubuntu power-management scripts (acpi-hibernate on 7.04 and earlier; pm-utils on 8.04) to use s2disk. uswsusp also implements compressed hibernation images, which makes it faster to resume from hibernation.
Trying to install a custom language (e.g. German localization) on the minimum 2GB partition mentioned above will fail. It requires up to 3GB for the initial installation! This disk usage can be reduced to about 1,2GB later on by removing language-support-en and other packages.
When the install is over and you have rebooted for the first time, the first thing to do is connect to your network. If you're plugged into a wired network it will auto-start. If you're connecting to an unprotected wireless network you will need to select the network to connect to by clicking the network symbol in the far lower right. If you are connecting to a protected network, you will need to enter the password.
Next, Xubuntu will need to download lots of updates (115 as of Apr 03, 2008) which will require yet another restart when it is done. This could take from 10 minutes up to an hour depending on your connection, or even how busy the servers are. Be patient. Don't start patching the system until after all the updates are in place. From the applications menu, select system and update manager. Run a check, then ensure everything is checked and click to install updates.
This is not working if you're behind a firewall and need an http proxy to go into the internet.
You can open a terminal, set the environment variable http_proxy to the proxy server and then
“sudo apt-get update” and “sudo apt-get upgrade”.
Alternatively you can configure a proxy using “Menu→System→Synaptic Package Manager”, “Settings→Preferences→Network”.
Now we are at the Out-Of-the-Box (OOTB) experience for EeeXubuntu. The Fn keys for screen brightness, mute, volume up/down should work, with On-Screen-Display (OSD). glxgear (alt-F2, glxgear and check run in terminal) will produce 70-90 fps. Ctl-Alt-left/right will move between the 4 desktops. Ctl-F1/F2/F3/F4 will take you to the respective desktops as well.
There is still plenty to do but this is our baseline.
SD Cards won't mount, can't toggle wireless on/off (it will after some updates and reboots) there is no audio and the camera may not be available.
If nothing else DON'T JUST RUN THE UBUNTU SCRIPTS, only a few seem to work (acpi). While it is my goal to re-create the scriot approach for Xubuntu for now we have a live CD and this approach. Hopefully this wiki page along with the EeeXubuntu developers page will help codify what is needed for a fully feature Xubuntu experience on the Eee.
Xubuntu will run perfectly fine without installing updates. This will save space as well as avoiding certian hassles. Also, updates can be installed on a program-by-program basis of your choice using synaptic package manager.
However, there are many updates that eliminate security vulnerabilities and other bugs, so staying up-to-date is a good idea, especially if you use the eee as your primary PC.
Note: If you upgrade to a new kernel your wireless will stop working. You can fix it by recompiling the wireless drivers as detailed on this page
The default installation leaves a line at the top of /etc/apt/sources-list that references the Xubuntu CD. It has a “cdrom:” URL. This means that if you try to install some packages (g++, for example), apt-get will fail because it can't find the CD. To fix this, edit that file as root
sudo mousepad /etc/apt/sources.list
and put a '#' in front of the cdrom line. That will comment it out, and apt-get will now refer to the web for all package downloads.
The Gnome Power Managment Utility makes problems!
cat /proc/acpi/battery/BAT0/state
shows a percentage value for “remaining capacity”
With hal-device we can see the status of the battery:
hal-device | grep battery
Percent of Charge:
hal-device | grep charge_level.percentage | awk '{print $3}'
Current Voltage in mV:
hal-device | grep voltage.current | awk '{print $3}'
Remaining Time: (I don't know the time format for this)
hal-device | grep remaining_time | awk '{print $3}'
With the Gnome-Power-Manager the Eee won't shutdown when the battery is critical.
You can remove the power manager and use the Battery Status Plugin from XFCE:
sudo apt-get remove gnome-power-manager sudo visudo
Write below # Cmnd alias specification
Cmnd_Alias SHUTDOWN_CMDS = /sbin/shutdown, /sbin/halt, /sbin/reboot
Write below %admin ALL=(ALL) ALL
your username ALL=(ALL) NOPASSWD: SHUTDOWN_CMDS
and replace your username.
Safe with Ctrl + O
Right click on panel and click “Add New Item”. Scroll Down and Select Battery Monitor
Change the settings in the XFCE Battery Monitor:
A side effect of removing gnome-power-manager is that the power button will no longer bring up the logout dialog but instead shutdown straight away. A workaround for this is:
gksudo mousepad /etc/acpi/events/powerbtn
and change the last line from:
action=/etc/acpi/powerbtn.sh
to:
action=SESSION_MANAGER=local/hostname:/tmp/.ICE-unix/`ls /tmp/.ICE-unix` sudo -H -u user /usr/bin/xfce4-session-logout --display=:0.0
Substitute hostname and user for whatever yours is.
Thanks to http://forum.eeepcnews.de/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1330
After installing eeeXubuntu, the fstab file contains a line which assumes that any external device you plug in is going to be a CD ROM drive. Ooops! So, to get external devices to mount:
sudo mousepad /etc/fstab
And comment out ( put a # in front of ) the /dev/sdb1 line and/or /dev/sdc1 line (whichever you have.) The example below shows the line commented out. It's the line that contains /media/cdrom0.
# /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 # /dev/sda1 UUID=10d03d2a-7732-4f6f-924f-541b39dd9559 / ext2 defaults,errors=remount-ro 0 1 #/dev/sdb1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
If there's a /sdc1 line, comment it out too.
You may also need to turn off “Volume Management” in Thunar (File Manager) settings ('Misc' tab).
Now external USB devices, USB flash drives, USB hard disks and SD cards should auto mount.
Suspend: In order for some USB storage devices to continue to operate normally after suspend, it is necessary to unmount them first. For example, supposing you mount an SD card on /media/sdram, then the following edits will allow it to survive suspend.
Create the file /etc/acpi/suspend.d/12-umounts.sh
#!/bin/sh umount /media/sdram
and also the file /etc/acpi/resume.d/89-mounts.sh
#!/bin/sh mount /media/sdram
Something similar is probably needed for hibernate.
Note that if the umount command fails (typically because a program stored on the medium was running), the remount won't work. In such a case, the usb storage device must be disconnected and reconnected, and also manually remounted if you aren't using volume management.
WARNING! If you installed&run eeexubuntu on a SD card, after suspend mode your ubuntu won't boot at all I have done this operation twice with same result — Gennady G. Marchenko 2008/02/25 11:37
http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=5984.
On machines with a swap partition add the following to
sudo mousepad /etc/rc.local
Put these two lines just before the “exit 0” statement at the end:
sysctl -w vm.swappiness=1 # Strongly discourage the swapping of application data to disk sysctl -w vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50 # Don't shrink the inode cache so aggressively.
This reduces the likelihood of the actual applications, or directory listings, from being paged out. Disk page cache is not nearly as important as random access SSD reads are faster than on HD. As a by-product the above will improve the responsiveness for interactive use (which is the primary use of the EEE), although reducing the overall performance of the system.
Or you can avoid changing the script and edit /etc/sysctl.conf instead. Change the last line to be
vm.swappiness=1
then add the line
vm.vfs_cache_pressure=50
By default Linux ext2/3 keeps a tab on access times for every file on the system. This leads to more writes than we need. Add “noatime” to the options for the / mount as shown below.
sudo mousepad /etc/fstab
# /etc/fstab: static file system information. # # <file system> <mount point> <type> <options> <dump> <pass> proc /proc proc defaults 0 0 # /dev/sda1 UUID=10d03d2a-7732-4f6f-924f-541b39dd9559 / ext2 defaults,noatime,errors=remount-ro 0 1 #/dev/sdb1 /media/cdrom0 udf,iso9660 user,noauto,exec 0 0
You will need to reboot or run …
sudo mount -o remount /
On newer kernels, “relatime” provides much the same advantages while maintaining higher compatibility (some mail clients rely on atime).
This saves SSD disk space and reduces the number of writes to the SSD, which will maximise its lifetime and provide a very small improvement to system performance.
Edit /etc/fstab again
sudo mousepad /etc/fstab
and add these lines to the end
# enable RAM-based temporary file systems tmpfs /var/tmp tmpfs noatime 0 0 tmpfs /tmp tmpfs noatime 0 0
This means that anything stored in /var/tmp or /tmp won't survive a reboot. If you're debugging a problem where you need to preserve those files e.g after a crash, then you can temporarily comment out those lines.
Xubuntu uses Thunar for a file manager, which doesn't support browsing a Windows network out of the box.
Here is a link to a How To at Ubuntu Forums. This works for eeeXubuntu installs as well.
When you have an external monitor Thunar often decides to use an enormous font instead of the small one it uses on the eee LCD. This is even more of a pain when you switch back to the LCD because Thunar doesn't usually switch back to the small screen size. However thanks to the Thunar wiki there is a fix. First create a file called .gtkrc-2.0 in your home directory (it probably doesn't exist - if it does you need to add to it)
mousepad ~/.gtkrc-2.0
Put the following in it:
style "fonttweak"
{
font_name="Sans 8"
}
widget_class "*Thunar*View*" style "fonttweak"
Then save the file and either log off or otherwise kill any instance of Thunar (e.g. using System Monitor or ps aux/kill ) When you start up Thunar again (e.g. by clicking on the File System icon on the desktop) it will now be using a small font even on the external monitor. Clearly if you want a different font then change “Sans 8” to the font name/size of your choice. — Francis Turner 2008/05/07 11:55
Sound has been interesting, it may require running Totem or even playing a file before everything shows up. The short story is to add the Volume control to the panel.
Alternatively you can load ALSA-Mixer (gtk not Gnome) and set the Volume control to run gamix, but that is not covered in this walk through.
This has been already implemented in Release 3. For earlier releases, you can perform the steps below.
In fact the solution describe below is implemented in r3 but it requires a little fixing: the script supposed to ensure clean shutdown isnt' run by default. See below how to enable it.
I apologise. It appears however, that this could have been an addition to the official reposistories. A fresh install last night proved that the file did not exist, however after retrieving all updates rc.localstop contained a new entry with a comment, containing this addition. Will need to look into this more - StealthCP
If you've installed Release 3, you already have this in your system. However, you need to re-instate it's invocation. A “sudo update-rc.d rc.localstop stop 01 0 6 .” (with the end period) will fix this and permit a proper shutdown. - STrRedWolf
The Eee PC won't shut down completely after using the sound module. At the end of the shutdown procedure you will see the green power light still lit with nothing happening.
Edit the file /etc/rc.localstop:
sudo mousepad /etc/rc.localstop
The end of the file should look like this:
# workaround to prevent hang on system shutdown (eeePC) rmmod snd_hda_intel exit 0
It seems that recently this change was added to the official repositories, so if you fully updated your system recently as advised above this should already be done. If not, then simply add 'rmmod snd-hda-intel' just before 'exit 0'. Save the file.
To activate this script during system shutdown procedure type the following
sudo update-rc.d rc.localstop stop 99 0 .
Source: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/faq#how_can_i_get_my_x_eee_ubuntu_to_shutdown_completely
You can test if this is neccesary by running the program glxgears. On the eee PC properly configured, glxgears should run at over 400 frames per second. Without 3d acceleration it runs at 30 to 40 frames per second. Open a terminal window and type glxgears. A graphic of spinning gears will appear, and after a few moments, the frames per second rate will be displayed in the terminal window. If the number is under 100, you need to follow the instructions below.
If you to play 3D games (like Xandros can) or are interested in installing the uber-cool compiz-fusion 3d desktop, follow these instructions to enable direct rendering in three easy steps:
Open a new terminal (menu: Applications→Accessories→Terminal) and…
sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglu1-mesa
NOTE: thats libgl1-mesa-dri libgl1-mesa-glx libglu1-mesa - be careful of 1's and l's!
Type in your user password if it asks you for it, and answer Y when it prompts you with a question to install the packages.
sudo mousepad /etc/X11/xorg.conf
Once again, enter your user password if it asks for it. This will open a text editor to edit your configuration for the foundation of Linux's graphical interface. Ignore the message about potentially harming your system because you are root (don't worry, nothing bad will happen).
Scroll down to the very end of the file, and add this text:
Section "Module" Load "glx" Load "dri" Load "dbe" EndSection Section "DRI" Mode 0666 EndSection
(Make sure the file ends with a blank line. The cursor needs to be TWO LINES below the last print. Failing to have a blank line will bork your xorg.conf)
Save and quit.
That's it! After you reboot and log in to your system, you can check if 3D acceleration is working by running glxgears. To do this, use the Alt-F2 combination in xubuntu to bring up the run dialog, type glxgears in the textbox, check run in terminal and hit run. Now you should see ~400fps! (aviato: I actually got results of around 900fps, so if you get more don't freak out.)
Note: if glxgears runs jerkily or ~200fps is reported in the console, comment out the following lines in the Section “Screen” of your xorg.conf
# Comment out these to get full OpenGL performance Virtual 1680 1680 Virtual 2560 2048
While you're in xorg.conf, you can uncomment the entries for the Wacom tablet if you want as well.
Note: Some users report that upon performing this step, the volume control function keys (fn-f8 and fn-f9) quit displaying the on-screen display although they continue to work.
The camera is not enabled in the bios by default. This is to conserve power. Therefore, before testing to see if the camera works, you will either need to enable the camera in the bios (press f2 when asked in the boot sequence, select advanced, select devices, and enable the camera) or you will need to “turn the camera on” after booting.
For details about enabling and disabling the camera, see Controlling the built-in webcam.
To run the camera to capture shots, or video, install the ucview application which came with the original eeePC. To install ucview you first need to set up the unicap repository following the instructions here:
http://unicap-imaging.org/using_repositories.htm (link updated 4-25-08)
Then from a terminal
sudo apt-get install ucview
There seems to be an issue with ucview that image capture produces a black jpeg file:
There seems to be an issue with the depository , it seems that they moved all the packages from contrib to main i had to change contrib to main int the depository declaration in /etc/apt/sources.list
h84ll1, 1/06/08
Some people may find the scrolling and tap button behavior on the touchpad annoying. The scrolling can make a web page or document you are working on suddenly start scrolling up and down wildly, and the tap button behavior often causes the cursor to suddenly appear in the wrong place in a document or text edit field. Generally, this is because a stray thumb or palm has hit the touchpad.
One approach to tweaking these settings is to add synclient commands to your autostart applications. Synclient is a command line application that can change settings for the touchpad. To add commands to autostart applications choose “Autostarted Applications” from the settings menu. For each command click the Add button. You can put whatever you want in the name field, but it's good to be descriptive, like “no vertical scroll”. You can leave the description blank if you want. Put the command in the command field. The changes will be applied the next time you restart. You can test out the commands in terminal first if you want.
To turn off vertical scrolling on the touchpad add this command to your autostarted applications:
synclient VertEdgeScroll=0
To slow down but not disable vertical scrolling add this command to your autostarted applications:
synclient VertScrollDelta=25000
(You can experiment with the number to find a speed that works for you. 25000 is pretty slow.)
To turn off tap button add this command to your autostarted applications:
synclient TapButton1=0
This will turn off one finger tapping
To turn off 2 finger tapping add the following to your auto started applications:
synclient TapButton2=0
You can also configure the touchpad corners. Each corner can be assigned any button number. The following commands will set the corner buttons to left click, right click, middle click, starting from the top left corner and proceeding clockwise.
synclient LTCornerButton=1
synclient RTCornerButton=3
synclient RBCornerButton=2
You can change the corner buttons to anything you like. These buttons can then be used in Compiz as shortcuts. Some useful shortcuts would be raise and lower. Experiment to find what suits you.
These commands can also be entered directly into your /etc/X11/xorg.conf file under the Synaptics Touchpad section. See the following for an example:
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"
Driver "synaptics"
Option "SendCoreEvents" "true"
Option "Device" "/dev/psaux"
Option "Protocol" "auto-dev"
Option "HorizEdgeScroll" "1"
Option "UpDownRepeat" "1"
Option "LeftRightRepeat" "1"
Option "ScrollButtonRepeat" "10"
Option "RTCornerButton" "8"
Option "LTCornerButton" "9"
Option "LBCornerButton" "10"
EndSection
Note: I had to add Option “SHMConfig” “on” in /etc/X11/xorg.conf (Synaptics Touchpad section) to be able to execute a synclient command. — vincent.fretin 2008/03/09 19:05
This should be auto-done by installing the xubuntu-restricted-formats under codecs below. If it isn't please refer to the forum's Original thread which had reference to this page for getting flash and Java 7 to work.
Ubuntu provides a single point install of restricted codecs, several applications including Java and Flash and etc. To install it simply:
sudo apt-get install xubuntu-restricted-extras
sudo apt-get install libxine1-ffmpeg xine-plugin
this Adds DivX, Xvid support to Totem and get the Mozilla plug in
* 'The easiest and most trustworthy way to install ALL CODECS with a single command is this:
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.10-plugins-bad gstreamer0.10-ffmpeg gstreamer0.10-fluendo-mp3 gstreamer0.10-plugins-ugly flashplugin-nonfree
-Truefire, http://www.easygeek.org
Have you installed the nonfree win32 codecs for mplayer/xine? I don't know if Ubuntu supplies a .deb for them, but for most distros you have to download them from mplayer.hu and untar the archive to /usr/lib/codecs. With these codecs installed you should be able to play any video in existence including the newest Windows Video VC1 videos.
It is “unofficially” suggested to download the nonfree codecs from the medibuntu repository.
See https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Medibuntu for instructions
On login, nm-applet will prompt for the keychain password, unless wireless roaming is disabled. This is annoying as, even if your keychain password is the same as your login password, you will always need to enter your password twice.
Note: The problem is the libpam-keyring0! With libpam-gnome-keyring you can choose to activate the keyring with login (works fine). But i can't deactivate the libpam-keyring0, any ideas? — x2on 2008/03/22 12:15
Before you do this, BEWARE that this poses a security risk as it leaves your keyring password sitting in plaintext on your hard drive. It's probably best to change it to something other than your login password (see below) and be aware of which other passwords you add to your keyring
Download the pam-keyring-tool binary (compiled for *buntu 7.10): http://launchpadlibrarian.net/10241907/pam-keyring-tool
Copy it to /usr/bin
cp ./pam-keyring-tool /usr/bin/
and make it executable
chmod +x pam-keyring-tool
Now create a file called unlock_keyring.sh, e.g. in $HOME/shellscripts
mousepad $HOME/shellscripts/unlock_keyring.sh
and put in the following
#!/bin/sh echo "YOUR_PASSWORD" | /usr/bin/pam-keyring-tool -u -s
and make it executable
chmod +x $HOME/shellscripts/unlock_keyring.sh
Now add that shell script to you autostart list by going to Menu –> Settings –> Autostarted Applications (Your autostart configuration will end up in ~/.config/autostart/)
To change your keyring password, you can use pam-keyring-tool:
pam-keyring-tool -c
If you have forgotten your keyring password, you can delete your keyring and start again: go to $HOME/.gnome2/keyrings and delete the file default.keyring and reboot. nm-applet should now ask you for your wireless key and after that, it should ask you to enter a new password for your default keyring.
this solution was found here: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=15346
Addressed in .3 release of EeeXubuntu Out of the box Fn plus the following should work:
F2 doesn't work in original eeeXubuntu install. You can fix it by either of following two methods.
Method 1: Both the wifi update below and the enabling of F5 (external monitor toggle) can be done. Follow these instructions these instructions. No need to cut and paste large amounts of text from this wiki. — Francis Turner 1 Feb 2008
If your Eee PC is non-US model, you will need to modify xorg.conf file to restore original keyboard layout setting. You can find correct settings in xorg.conf.backup file (you must have made it!).
Here's an example fro UK (GB) keyboard:
Section "InputDevice" Identifier "Generic Keyboard" Driver "kbd" Option "CoreKeyboard" Option "XkbRules" "xorg" Option "XkbModel" "pc105" Option "XkbLayout" "gb" EndSection
Method 2: The Wifi Hotkey Fn-F2 can be fixed as follows:
1. Create the file /etc/acpi/events/eee-wifi-on
sudo mousepad /etc/acpi/events/eee-wifi-on
and put the following
# ASUS eeePC Wifi Hotkey (Fn-F2) event=hotkey ATKD 00000010 action=/etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh on
* I had to use “ATKD 00000090” here to make this work on my EeePC. - Petaramesh, 2008/02/15
2. Create the file /etc/acpi/events/eee-wifi-off
sudo mousepad /etc/acpi/events/eee-wifi-off
and put the following
# ASUS eeePC Wifi Hotkey (Fn-F2) event=hotkey ATKD 00000011 action=/etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh off
* I had to use “ATKD 00000091” here to make this work on my EeePC. - Petaramesh, 2008/02/15
3. Create the file /etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh
sudo mousepad /etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh
and put the following
#!/bin/sh
#FILE: /etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh
# main wifi toggle script (loads/unloads modules)
. /usr/share/acpi-support/key-constants
# The sequence here *is* important.
unload_modules() {
rmmod ath_pci
rmmod ath_rate_sample
rmmod ath_hal
rmmod wlan_ccmp
rmmod wlan_tkip
rmmod wlan_wep
rmmod wlan_acl
rmmod wlan_scan_sta
rmmod wlan
}
# At least this one's straightforward.
load_modules() {
modprobe ath_pci
}
wifi_on() {
# Force PCI Express Hotplug to reinit
rmmod pciehp
sleep 1
# pciehp_force may be unnecessary; Xandros did it.
modprobe pciehp pciehp_force=1
sleep 1
# Switch on the hardware
echo 1 >/proc/acpi/asus/wlan
sleep 1
load_modules
}
wifi_off() {
unload_modules
echo 0 >/proc/acpi/asus/wlan
}
case $1 in
on)
acpi_fakekey $KEY_PROG1
wifi_on
;;
off)
acpi_fakekey $KEY_PROG2
wifi_off
;;
toggle)
STAT=`cat /proc/acpi/asus/wlan`
if [ "$STAT" = "1" ];
then wifi_off;
else wifi_on;
fi
;;
esac
Note: My eee is downclocked to 57 MHz FSB. I had to increase the sleep time for pciehp in wifi_on() a bit, otherwise wlan would fail. Martin Hinterberger 28 Feb 2008
4. Make the file /etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh executeable (open a shell and type the following)
sudo chmod +x /etc/acpi/eee-wifi-on-off.sh
This solution was found here.
Added Conzi 04.02.2008 It seems that the OSD does not work ootb with eeeXubuntu. Graves has released the 'eeeXubuntu ASUS OSD Scriptpack v2.0' which fixed this issue for me. Details are on the forum here and here (in german).
The eee has a really neat built-in BIOS upgrade utility. Just put the new BIOS on a USB stick, rename it to 701.ROM, hold Alt-F2 at boot, and it will perform a BIOS flash automatically. The utility is built into the BIOS itself. Or you could make a bootable DOS USB stick, put the flash utility and BIOS image on it, and boot from it. There's no need to with the built-in utility, though.
Getting the famous cube, wobbly windows and all is easy, and works fine on an stock g4 with 512 meg of ram (amazing as that may seem). It's definitely worth doing! For details see How to setup Compiz Fusion on eeeXubuntu.
The OOTB Xubuntu GDM theme has a small glitch on a screen as small as the Eee's where the text-box for your username and password does not quite fit correctly. This can easily be fixed by editing the XML file that describes the theme's layout. First make a backup copy:
sudo cp /usr/share/gdm/themes/xubuntu/Xubuntu.xml /usr/share/gdm/themes/xubuntu/Xubuntu.xml.bak
Then open up the original XML file and browse to line 125 (you can check your current position in nano by hitting ctrl+C)
sudo nano -w /usr/share/gdm/themes/xubuntu/Xubuntu.xml
The line you are looking for should read:
<pos width="160" height="24"/>
You need add x=”+4” and change width to 134. The corrected line should look like this:
<pos x="+4" width="134" height="24"/>
Hit ctrl+X → Y →[enter] to save your changes and Voila! The Xubuntu GDM theme will now look normal!
Note: This was based off my own install of eeeXubuntu; I followed the wiki and noticed this problem and this was how I fixed it. It should be the same for other Eee users but I haven't noticed reports of it elsewhere. — Nate Weibley 2008/02/25 14:50
Note: Works here on my Eee too… THX — x2on 2008/03/03 11:00
GIMP is installed by default.
Inkscape is a very good Vector graphics program http://www.inkscape.org/
You can install it with:
sudo apt-get install inkscape
To be able to use it in 800×480 you need to install the Clearlooks Compact GTK2 theme (see “Screen Space and Themes” section below)
Scribus is a desktop publishing program that gives you full control over page layouts. It works with CMYK color profiles and has PDF output. http://www.scribus.net/
Scribus 1.3.3.9 is available through the Synaptic Package Manager.
Digital painting and sketchpainting free and open source application, with lot of preexisting brushs, layers, ability to rotate/zoom/pan the unlimited canvas in realtime. * http://mypaint.intilinux.com/ (get it from Download page of this official site) * http://www.getdeb.net/app/MyPaint (other method)
GQView is installed and usable as an image viewer. You will have to go into the preferences and set it to scale the image to window size as it defaults to showing them full scale.
Ristretto is a lightweight image viewer for the Xfce desktop. Information and downloads can be found here
Similar to the other two listed, but I wasn't quite happy with either of those, and Mirage hits the spot for me (richardkemp). Give it a go!
comics book oriented (.cbz, .zip, .cbr, .rar), allow to see two page side by side, to rotate view, to use a magnifying glass to zoom on some part of the pictures or read text. book collection management.
Avidemux works well as a lightweight video editor. Version 2.4.1 has .flv support which allows you to edit flash files from youtube etc. To download 2.4.1 visit getdeb.net: http://www.getdeb.net/release.php?id=2178
ffmpeg2theora is a tiny but useful command line application (you use it in terminal because it doesn't have a graphical interface) for converting video files into the theora format (.ogg - a free video codec).
To install, use this command:
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg2theora
To use the program, open a terminal and navigate to the directory where your video file is. If it's on your Desktop, for instance, you would use:
cd /home/YOUR_LOGIN_NAME/Desktop
Don't forget to change YOUR_LOGIN_NAME to whatever your login name is.
Next, use this command:
ffmpeg2theora (Filename of the video)
Your converted video file (.ogg) will show up in the same directory as the original video file.
Audacity runs well in eeeXubuntu as a basic sound editor: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Audacity 1.3.3 supports Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV, AIFF, and AU and is available through the Synaptic Package Manager.
A cross platform media player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, flv, etc).
sudo apt-get install vlc
More information on setting up Compiz-Fusion is in the wiki here. h84ll1, 1/06/08
Evince is installed by default as the MIME application for reading pdf files. Unless you need advanced Acroread features there is little point in going to the bother of installing Adobe Acroread as its interface is not as snappy (e.g. cluttered, not as fast, buffers keypresses).
EeeXubuntu includes just the word processor part of Open Office and ignores the other parts (presentation, spreadsheet etc.) which seems a bit silly. You can easily install the rest using the full openoffice.org package using apt-get or synaptic and at the same time remove Gnumeric (for spreadsheets) and Abiword (for text). This appears to be roughly neutral in terms of storage space used but adds the ability to use presentations too.
Alternatively you can uninstall all of Open Office and stick with Abiword and Gnumeric for a reasonable saving in disk space
These files are regarded as basic for any TeX system, covering plain TeX macros, Computer Modern fonts, and configuration for common drivers.
To install Latex with the Kile (KDE Latex Editor) on your Eee-PC just copy this to an terminal:
sudo apt-get install texlive-base kile
Freemind is a great mind-mapping app that works well with eeeXubuntu. http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
To install Freemind 0.8.0 you can follow these instruction on the Freemind wiki:
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/FreeMind_on_Linux#Ubuntu_.26_Kubuntu
If you want to made video calls with Skype then you need to download the beta 2.0 version from the Skype Garage. It won't install however until you install libqt4-core and libqt4-gui. The latter won't install because it can't find an installation candidate for libaudio2. this thread on ubuntuforums.org explains how to install that.
Synaptic shows libaudio2 in the Xubuntu repositories since version 4…, as is libqt4 core and gui. you have to install libqt-gui to install eeeCamTray, so you may already have that, but all 3 of these are just in synaptic or can be gotten just by doing an apt-get
after downloading, I was told “All dependencies are satisfied” on xunbuntu, but I had previously installed libqt for eeecamtray — Rick Boatright 2007/12/29 00:06
You may find it easier to simply enable the medibuntu repositories (see below for getting codecs that way) and install Skype from there as this is now the 2.0 version. — Francis Turner
Easy Way to install Skype at your Eee-PC:
Use this script to install Skype 2.0.0.43 automaticly (use the script at your own risk): — x2on 2008/03/03 12:33
wget http://www.x2on.de/eeepc/skypeinstall && chmod +x keepassinstall && ./skypeinstall
Note: You can find the script also on http://code.google.com/p/eeescripts/ — x2on 2008/03/03 13:10
To install the newest Version of Pidgin (actually 2.4.0) you must first remove the old one:
sudo apt-get remove pidgin pidgin-data
Download the .deb packages from getdeb.net: pidgin pidgin-data libpurple0
Install the new Pidgin 2.4.0:
Open an Terminal and go to the downloadlocation:
sudo dpkg -i pidgin-data_2.4.0-1~getdeb1_all.deb sudo dpkg -i libpurple0_2.4.0-1~getdeb1_i386.deb sudo dpkg -i pidgin_2.4.0-1~getdeb1_i386.deb
You can install Eclipse 3.2.2 easily with
sudo apt-get install eclipse
Install Eclipse 3.3.2:
To install the newer version of Eclipse you must download Eclipse 3.3.2 from here: Eclise 3.3.2 Open an terminal and copy the downloaded archiv to /opt and untar
sudo cp eclipse-SDK-3.3.2-linux-gtk.tar.gz /opt sudo tar xfvz eclipse-SDK-3.3.2-linux-gtk.tar.gz
Make a symbolic link to eclipse:
ln -s /opt/eclipse/eclipse /usr/local/bin
You can run Eclipse with
eclipse
in the terminal or put an shortcut to the Desktop
There has been much discussion in the Xandros sections concerning setting the behaviour on battery exhaustion, opening and closing the lid etc. Under Xubuntu the way to access the GUI interface for these options is to right-click on the battery icon in the system tray. (Apparently Xandros requires manual mods to the scripts).
If you have a swap space then you can e.g. set the EEE to hibernate instead of shutdown. This reduces boot time, allows you to carry on from where you left off and reduces your chances of losing work due to an unanticipated shutdown
If you don't wish to use Hibernate or Suspend, you can remove these from the shutdown screen and have one large Shutdown Button. Click Applications > Settings > Settings Manager, and Select Sessions and Startup. In the General tab, remove the checks from Show hibernate button and Show suspend button.
By default the Home key (the one between the Fn and Alt keys) is set as a 'modifier key' by X, (e.g. like control or alt). To remove this create/edit .Xmodmap in your home directory.
$ cd ~ $ nano .Xmodmap
and add the line:
remove mod4 = Super_L
Save the file and restart Xfce, ctrl+alt+backspace. When you've logged back in, go to Settings > Settings Manager, and click on Keyboard. Now click on the Shortcuts tab. At the end of the Themes column, click add. Call your new theme a name, clicking OK will select your new theme and the Shortcuts will now be selectable. click Add in the Shortcuts section, type your command xfce4-popup-menu Click OK, it will ask you to press a key. Press the Home button. The shortcut xfce4-popup-menu Super+Super_L should now of appeared on the list.
When you're done downloading and installing packages with apt-get, it's a good idea to run
sudo apt-get clean
to flush the package cache. This should free up some space on your SSD by clearing out all of the *.bin and *.deb files that are in /var/cache/apt and /var/cache/apt/archives.
When sudo apt-get remove xxxxx is run, it does not remove all of the files off of your system. The configuration files and the installation files still remain. The configuration files are typically very small, but the installation files pose a real threat to your overall disk space. Clearing the apt cache removes these installation files.
Localepurge is an automatic utillity to remove unnecessary locale data.
Install the tool:
sudo apt-get install localepurge
Choose your locale: Always choose en and en_US* (For German, add de and de_DE*)
Run
sudo localepurge
too remove unneeded locales
| Program | Space Saved | Apt Removal | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Openoffice.org (All) | ~250 MB | sudo apt-get remove openoffice-core | Openoffice.org is the Microsoft Office replacement software. This includes Writer (Word), Calc (Excel), and Impress (Power Point). Consider using AbiWord as a replacement for Writer as it also opens Microsoft Word Documents also. |
| Gimp | ~11 MB | sudo apt-get remove gimp | Gimp is a graphic editor similiar to Adobe Photoshop. |
| Mozilla Firefox | ~27 MB | sudo apt-get remove firefox | Firefox is the default web browser in EeeXubuntu. Using the Opera browser instead gives you a net savings of around 14 MB |
| Mozilla Thunderbird | ~33 MB | sudo apt-get remove thunderbird | Thunderbird is an email client similiar to Microsoft Outlook. It has the ability to access POP3/IMAP/RSS and more. However, if you only check your email through your web browser (i.e. hotmail, gmail, etc.) consider removing this to save space. |
Themes: Littlefox
Themes: Littlebird
This removes one row of icons from the top. Combine this with a small icon them like the Littlebird theme to save quite a bit of space.
If you want more working space on the 800×480 for your programs… you can install these themes:
This makes almost all the controls smaller. http://martin.ankerl.com/2007/11/04/clearlooks-compact-gnome-theme/
Very small but still usable. http://www.xfce-look.org/content/show.php/prelude-4?content=69300
Bigger and easier to use. http://www.xfce-look.org/content/show.php/Boto?content=58205
Information about installing themes in xfce4 can be found here rio b and you sfr rio sosh code rio
