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[Pan-users] Re: Advice on other lists


From: Duncan
Subject: [Pan-users] Re: Advice on other lists
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 2009 06:15:31 +0000 (UTC)
User-agent: Pan/0.133 (House of Butterflies)

Doug Saylor posted on Sun, 23 Aug 2009 22:43:35 -0500 as excerpted:

> A few of you guys were SOOOO helpful... I'm hoping you can help me find
> a list that can help me with my current problem. I'm using a Netbook,
> Acer Aspire One, Ubuntu Netbook Remix 9.04 & I have AT&T 3G Broadband.
> It's working in XP. Can't get it working in Linux. I'm looking for
> mailing lists that could be helpfull. Thanks ahead of time. My Pan is
> working G-R-E-A-T!

Which AA1?

FWIW, I have an AA1, one of the original AOA150L models, came with some 
Linux distribution (thus the "L" suffix, "X" was eXPrivacy) from Taiwan 
that I don't remember the name of.  I've intended to stick Gentoo on it, 
but I haven't gotten the properly rounded "tuit" yet. =:^(   

(Actually, I've had a rather long-term project going sorting out a big 17 
gig archive of Myspace images that I torrented, ~ half a million 
images...  I didn't have room to put the Gentoo build-space for the AA1 
on my main computer until I got some of that done.  I have enough room 
now I think, but I've been busy upgrading to KDE-4 lately -- what an 
upgrade! -- thus making /more/ room as I don't have both kde3 and kde4 on 
the machine together, but I /still/ haven't gotten back to the AA1.)

Here, I got it mainly as an MP3 and video player, with the bonus that it 
was a small computer as well.  It'll be great -- once-I/if-I-ever get it 
all set up!  But I've not really done anything with it yet.  But for that 
reason I wasn't particularly interested in the way-too-expensive-anyway 
broadband plans for it.  I wouldn't have even cared if it had wifi, tho 
that's a nice bonus, as long as it had either Ethernet or a USB slot to 
plug in a thumb drive to transfer stuff to it, and it has both.  But 
anyway, that's why I don't know much about the Internet capacities on it.

FWIW, I had a /terrible/ time getting the thing.

First of all, I had to wait until one shipped with something other than 
the tiny SSDs they put in the Asus EEEs and as, it seems, the primary 
option on the initial AA1s.  I'd been waiting /years/ for a proper MP3 
player with > 100 gigs of space, that ran a user replaceable firmware, 
either Rockbox or Linux.  When Apple /finally/ shipped the 160 gig iPod 
Classic, Rockbox wasn't available for it, so I waited some more...  Then 
the Asus EEEs came out, and I thought /perfect/... EXCEPT they initially 
shipped with those tiny SSDs.  So I waited some MORE...  Then **FINALLY** 
I read about the second round of netbooks, including the AA1, and that 
FINALLY, the AA1 was going to be available with a 120 gig hard drive, AND 
since it ran Linux, it had that angle of it covered as well, plus I 
wouldn't have to worry too much about drivers, etc.

But, most of the 120 gig equipped ones (the AOA150 models) were setup for 
XP (AOA150X), not Linux (AOA150L).  There was no way I was even going to 
/think/ about getting MS on the thing -- I'd have rather done without.  
But here in the US, it seems that's all that Acer was selling the 
retailers.  So I was even starting to consider having it shipped in from 
Europe!  But I found a couple Canadian retailers that sold it over the 
web, one of which, NCIX, had a US branch, NCIXUS.  So I ordered from them.

Then, even tho NIXUS said they charged in USD, the bank charged me an 
additional currency conversion fee (which I never did contest).  Then it 
shipped from a Canadian warehouse, FedEx International.  I was tracking 
it, watching it hit the international side of the FedEx-Oakland (CA,US) 
International shipping and customs clearance warehouse.  It cleared 
customs... and was never checked in on the US side!

So it disappeared at the FedEx-Oakland customs warehouse, somewhere 
between clearing customs and checkin on the US side!

Fortunately, I had insured it (something told me I should, even tho I 
expected it to ship from a a NCIXUS US warehouse), and after about six 
weeks calling NCIX, FedEx, NCIX again, FedEx again, a different FedEx 
department, yet another one, NCIX again, FedEx again... you get the 
idea... they shipped another one!  This one *FINALLY* got thru, but you 
can bet I was checking the tracking multiple times a day, watching every 
stop, breathing a sigh of relief after it cleared customs AND got checked 
in on the US side, etc.  Still, I didn't quite believe it until I 
actually had the box in my hand, actually opened the box and ensured it 
wasn't a brick or something, signed the FedEx driver's shipping release, 
plugged it in for that first charge, and settled in to read the info that 
shipped with it, etc.

You can bet I rather appreciate it too, even if I /haven't/ really done 
anything with it yet.

But anyway... back to /your/ AA1.

If it's one of the first AA1s such as mine, the broadband was an optional 
expansion card not shipped by default.  I /believe/ the kernel has 
drivers for it, but I'm not positive.  If it's a newer model, I wouldn't 
know.  And of course while I've read about Ubuntu Remix, it really hasn't 
interested me.

Meanwhile, there ARE a couple AA1 specific web sites that you should know 
about, if you don't already.  They have hardware and drivers info for 
both Linux and XP, hardware and software tweaks, all sorts of hints and 
other info about them, etc.  All the sort of stuff that first appeared 
about the Asus EEE on /its/ fan sites.  They should have your driver 
info, and WAAAYYY more.

<rummaging thru my bookmarks>

I have the rss-feed from this one subscribed.  The guy that runs the site 
goes by King.  The site has been up since shortly after the first 
announcements, before the AA1 was ever released, initially tracking the 
PR on it, various reviews, then where people could pre-order it, etc.  
IIRC I found this when I was googling for info, pre-release.

http://AspireOneUser.com

This one is another fan-site/blog.  "Macles" is the name of a mineral, 
and was the Acer development code name for the AA1.  It apparently came a 
bit later, or at least I found it a bit later, when it was linked from 
aspireoneuser.  He has had some of the more technical coverage.

http://macles.blogspot.com

I've also bookmarked a couple other pages, including an Arch-Linux forum 
thread on the AA1, and a Google search I did, searching for the 
appropriate CFLAGS and etc, since I'm going to be putting Gentoo on it.  
(Apparently gentoo-wiki.com, not an official Gentoo site, had some of the 
first info on that sort of thing, but it went offline for awhile, tho 
it's back now.  I originally did the googling when it was offline, and 
the Arch-Linux thread was the next most relevant to what I was looking 
for, so that's what I bookmarked.  gentoo-wiki is supposed to be back 
online now, but they've had to start from scratch as they apparently 
didn't have a backup when they went down, and I've not been back thru to 
check and see if they've gotten their AA1 info back up or not.)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q="acer+aspire+one"+gcc+cflags

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?pid=398811

So while I don't have much direct help for you, those links should get 
you well on your way, not only to the info you asked for, but MUCH MUCH 
more on the AA1s. Plus, you got to see my story of all the trouble I went 
thru to get my AA1, and be glad you (hopefully) didn't have the same sort 
of problems!  =:^)

-- 
Duncan - List replies preferred.   No HTML msgs.
"Every nonfree program has a lord, a master --
and if you use the program, he is your master."  Richard Stallman





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