Test Drive: Ubuntu-Gnome 14.04 “Trusty Tahr” on the EEEPC 900

It's almost one month before Ubuntu's spring update time. As soon as first alpha then beta releases are made available I take some time to have a look at them. Since the EEEPC is the oldest computer I actually use the first question I ask myself before every upgrade is: “Will the new release work fine on my old netbook?”. I so downloaded the latest (beta-1) available preview of Ubuntu Gnome edition and prepared my USB disk for a brief evaluation.

Yes, It works!

The short answer is: yes, it works. Ubuntu-Gnome booted in the usual featureless screen

Gnome Shell is as responsive as before, the new versions show some (welcome) differences in the application launcher where smaller icons and a different scroll-bar look are used

Test Drive: BlankOn 9.0 on the EEEPC 900

During one of my frequent visits to DistroWatch I happened to notice the post informing of the latest release of BlankOn: a Debian derived Indonesian Linux distribution. I, usually, don't care much about “National” distributions, they are interesting initiatives but often lack of support if you live outside their “target” country. What in this case caught my attention has been the custom panel interface resembling, in DistroWatch screen-shots, the “good” old netbook interface I used for years.

I so downloaded BlankOn ISO Image; it took a little to me find the right link since BlankOn site is only in Indonesian language, eventually I found it by following the “big blue button”. I then prepared a bootable USB disk using UNetbootin and re-booted my EEEPC.

First impressions

BlankOn desktop is based on Gnome Shell, it opens with plain screen with only a panel at the to side.

by clicking in the BlankOn logo in the upper-left corner the side panel is activated.