Test drive: (Raspberry PI) Pixel on the EEEPC 900

I own a Raspberry PI since two years but I used it as headless server from the very beginning. I have, almost, never seen its window manager apart from some remote desktop experiment. I so learned only recently how latest Raspbian released are shipped with a new lightweight desktop environment: Pixel. More recently I also learned that Pixel has been released for X86 “common” computers I decided to test how it runs on my EEEPC 900 netbook.

First impressions

I downloaded Pixel ISO disk image from here and prepared a bootable USB disk. Raspberry page suggested using Etcher to prepare the boot disk but UNetbootin did the job as well as usual.

The boot process went smooth and quite fast, and Pixel here is my very first screen-shot of Pixel.

Test Drive: Linux Mint 18 “Sarah” on the EEEPC

It has been some time since my latest “test-drive” of a linux distribution on the EEEPC. I must be honest about it: the EEEPC is getting everyday older and I’m slowly loosing interest in improoving its use. By the way afrer reading of the newly released Linux Mint version, powered by Cinnamon 3.0, I’ve been tempted to write a live disk on my USB stick and try how it performs on my old netbook.

First impressions

After boot Linux Mint starts with the usual, “good-old” fashioned, Cinnamon desktop

Cinnamon applications menu offers a modern interface to start applications with all features a good application launcher need

Upgrading (the EEEPC) with low disk space

When, while installing Xubuntu, I decided EEEPC disk partitioning I based my decision on previous installation typical disk usage worrying mostly about “/home” and “/usr” partitions. I never would have thought about running out of space in the root “/” partition.

Then, the first time I tried to upgrade to latest Xubuntu distribution I got an error message about disk free space on partition being not enough to download distribution files (that usually take a little less than 1GB of disk space). Examining disk free space I discovered that very little free space was left on the root partition even if it was more then enough after my post-installation check.

Fortunately AskUbuntu came quickly at recover: here I quickly found a question asked from who had the same problem. To be precise the question was about problems with “/boot” partition low disk space bat I suppose it was because of a different partitioning schema, by the way solution worked for me.

Cleaning “apt-get” leftovers

As I learned from AskUbuntu question some of the “lost” disk space might be occupied by unused files or apt-get temporary files. So simply by executing the following commands …

sudo apt-get autoremove

sudo apt-get clean

some disk space can be set free.

Removing old Linux kernel images

If free space gained from the previous operation isn't enough some more space can be obtained by removing old Linux kernel images. Every time Ubuntu upgrade to e new kernel release the old one is kept available in to be used to solve possible compatibility issues. Such feature is scarcely user and is of no use at all in the eve of a major distribution upgrade.

First the currently used Linux kernel must be identified the command …

uname -a

does the job, here is the current output

Linux eeepc900 4.4.0-21-generic #37-Ubuntu SMP Mon Apr 18 18:34:49 UTC 2016 i686 i686 i686 GNU/Linux

while the command …

dpkg -l 'linux-image*'

lists all Linux kernel images currently installed, here is a sample output:

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold

| Status=Not/Inst/Conf-files/Unpacked/halF-conf/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend

|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)

||/ Name Version Architecture Description

+++-==============-============-============-=================================

un linux-image <none> <none> (no description available)

un linux-image-3. <none> <none> (no description available)

rc linux-image-3. 3.19.0-15.15 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.

rc linux-image-3. 3.19.0-28.30 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.

rc linux-image-3. 3.19.0-33.38 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.

rc linux-image-3. 3.19.0-43.49 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.

ii linux-image-3. 3.19.0-56.62 i386 Linux kernel image for version 3.

ii linux-image-4. 4.2.0-34.39 i386 Linux kernel image for version 4.

ii linux-image-4. 4.4.0-21.37 i386 Linux kernel image for version 4.

rc linux-image-ex 3.19.0-15.15 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for ve

rc linux-image-ex 3.19.0-28.30 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for ve

rc linux-image-ex 3.19.0-33.38 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for ve

rc linux-image-ex 3.19.0-43.49 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for ve

ii linux-image-ex 3.19.0-56.62 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for ve

ii linux-image-ex 4.2.0-34.39 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for ve

ii linux-image-ex 4.4.0-21.37 i386 Linux kernel extra modules for ve

ii linux-image-ge 4.4.0.21.22 i386 Generic Linux kernel image

eventually older kernel images can be removed with an “apt-get” command like the following, changing of course the version number

sudo apt-get -y purge linux-image-x.yy.z-tt-generic linux-image-extra-x.yy.z-tt-generic linux-headers-x.yy.z-tt linux-headers-x.yy.z-tt-generic

If you look deeper in AskUbuntu answer you'll see that more complex scripts can be used to make the operation faster. I stopped here, I don't like automating too much when deleting things and, after all, this it's I problem I get into at most twice a year. So … I can do it manually

The quest for new languages: Python

It happens, sometimes, that I download a “new” programming language or a framework or library in order to give it a try. Of course the word “new” is relative to my personal or professional experience, mostly orbiting around the Java galaxy. This time the “new” programming language is Python. Python is, of course, a widely used and far from being a new programming language but I never had the thought of giving it a try before.

Python on Eclipse: PyDev

I'm willing to learn new languages but I'm not so eager to install and use a new IDE while doing it. I so went looking for a Python development Eclipse plug-in and the choice fell on PyDev. Installing PyDev on Eclipse has been quite simple, just matter of selecting it on Eclipse Market Place and completing the installation wizard.

Before creating the first project PyDev plug-in needs to know where python interpreter is. There is a handy automatic search feature but I preferred the manual configuration in order to have more meaningful configuration names.

Test Drive: Ubuntu Mate 15.04 on the EEEPC 900

Ubuntu Mate is a Ubuntu derivative distribution equipped with Mate desktop environment. Ubuntu Mate has been recently admitted among the official Ubuntu derivatives, I've been reading some very positive post about it so I decided for giving it a quick (live) look on the EEEPC even if I had already reinstalled my netbook computer with Xubuntu,

First impressions

After the usual process of preparing a USB disk an booting the netbook from it I've been welcomed from a very Gnome-2-looking interface.

The default interface provide the usual Applications, Places and System menus:

Installed Xubuntu 15.04 Vivid Vervet on the EEEPC

After some testing of light-weight desktop environments I decided, at last, for installing Xubuntu (Xfce flavored Ubuntu) on my good old EEEPC 900. Xubuntu choice came because Xfce desktop environment behaved well, during my tests, working smoothly on the resource-poor EEEPC while being still able to render a modern enough user interface. Last but not least I've been using for years Xubuntu on my old desktop Sempron 2400 without problems.

Before installing

Before starting with installation procedure I had to do some preliminary operation. First has been, of course, backing-up my home folder into an external USB disk (hosting all my backup since I removed original Xandros installation). Then I executed Ubuntu's disk analysis tool in order to have a hint about how to partition the new installation disks. Until now, in fact, I kept the EEEPC900 4GB on-board disk for a minimal Windows XP installation (when I bought it the EEEPC was my fastest computer) but time has come to get rid of it. So a fair distribution of disk usage among the two netbook disks is going to be important.

The disk analysis showed how my disk usage was almost evenly split between the “home” and the “usr” folder (where most of application are installed) while the rest of system folder are well less of the 4GB limit.

Test Drive: Xfce (Xubuntu) on the EEEPC 900

As promised in previous post I continued in my touring about testing lightweight desktop environments on the EEEPC. This time I installed on my netbook the most famous lightweight desktop: Xfce.

I've been using Xfce for many years on my, now dismissed, old Sempron 2400 desktop computer. I never worked with it on the EEEPC. At the time the EEEPC was my “fastest” computer and Gnome used to work fine enough on it.

Installation and first impressions

I installed Xfce from shell by simply typing:

sudo apt-get install xubuntu-desktop

After the installation process competed I logged off from the Gnome-Shell session and logged back in after selecting Xfce (Xubuntu Session) as desktop environment.

Here is the Xfce just after logging in:

Test Drive: Ubuntu-Gnome 15.04 (Beta 1) on the EEEPC 900

As my hardware is getting old I start living the usual “Upgrade season” with more anxiety than eagerness. The question “Will the computer still work with the new release” becomes every year more fundamental and eventually I enter in a sort of “No-news-good-news” spirit where shorter new features list are welcomed while every novelty is looked with suspicious.

So I downloaded the newly released Ubuntu-Gnome 15.04 (Vivid Vervet) in order to test it on my old netbook mostly to see if it would continue working properly after being upgraded.

The test

I booted the EEEPC from my USB disk and, after a quite short boot time, I've been taken to the usual “Install or Try it” welcome screen:

Test Drive: Lxde (Lubuntu) on the EEEPC 900

My good old EEEPC netbook is, day by day, getting too old. Apart from usual aging hardware problems, like the decreasing battery capacity, also the software side is worsening at every update. I still have the latest Ubuntu release installed but Gnome-Shell is showing a persistent delay in responding to some mouse actions like opening menus or showing the activities screen.

I decided for giving a look to some of the so called “light-weight” desktop engine in order to possibly completely or partially replace Gnome-Shell.

Lxde (Lubuntu-desktop)

Lxde is, together with Xfce, among the most famous lightweight desktop environments. I decided to install it on my netbook instead of performing my tests with a live disk like I usually do. This should let me obtain a more accurate and realistic test. I'm not too worried about leaving my system too “dirty” since I'm probably going to re-install the whole operating system on the EEEPC once I'll have come to a decision.

I so installed Lxde trough the apt-get command:

sudo apt-get install lubuntu-desktop

then I logged out from Gnome-Shell and logged back in after selecting Lxde from the login menu. Lxde offers, in the login menu, selection between two desktop modes: the “classic” (Lubuntu) and the netbook (Lubuntu-Netbook) mode.

Lxde “Classic” mode

The “Classic” Lxde desktop shows a Gnome-2-like user interface with a bottom panel and a bottom-left program launcher menu.

Test Drive : KDE Plasma 5 on the EEEPC

I like KDE from a theoretical point of view: I especially appreciate its philosophy about flexibility and configuration capabilities. On the other hand, on the practical side, I never felt comfortable using it even if I tried more than once. By the way after reading the recent news about new KDE “Plasma” version 5 I decided it was worth giving it a look.

I so downloaded the “Neon 5 Project” live disk image, based on Kubuntu, available on KDE site and put it on my USB disk using Ubuntu start-up disk creator tool.

First impressions

I tested the newly prepared USB disk both on my desktop computer and on my netbook. KDE worked fine, of course, on the Veriton desktop but I was surprised to find I worked decently even on my old EEEPC.

At boot the EEEPC show an error about a Kwin unexpectedly closing, whatever causes it KDE starts and it seem to work normally.

the desktop is organized in a very traditional way with a functional “start” menu on the lower left:

Test Drive: Linux Mint 17 “Qiana” on the EEEPC 900

Some time after Ubuntu release also Linux Mint has came out with its latest version: number 17 codenamed “Qiana”. Even if a little late since the release date I decided to give Mint Qiana a quick look by running it live on the EEEPC. I've been a Mint user for a while, what mostly interest me is to observe evolution of Mint desktop: Cinnamon. The EEEPC 900 is getting old and, even if it's still functional, Gnome Shell is getting less responsive every update. I was so thinking about switching to a lighter window manager.

First impressions

Here is how Linux Mint 17 looks like:

Upgraded to Ubuntu 14.04 … (one way or another)

Ubuntu spring update has arrived, this year coinciding with Easter. As soon I had time I proceeded with upgrading my two computers. The upgrade process has not been as smooth as I'd liked but at the end I managed to have both computer up-to-date.

 

Acer Veriton S661

I started the upgrade process on my desktop computer and, after answering the usual initial “agree” and “confirm”, I left the computer unattended for the long file download part of the upgrade process. When I returned the computer had the screen locked and I couldn't manage to unlock it anymore. After many attempts I decided for the most drastic solution: forcing the computer to restart. The result has been the most drastic too: the computer refused to boot.

I've been so forced to download a Ubuntu disk image and proceed with a full installation. The installation procedure recognized, fortunately, the incomplete Ubuntu set-up and offered a “Reinstall Ubuntu 14.04” option. Re-installation from disk proceeded flawlessly and eventually I got my system mostly restored apart from some custom system files which have been overwritten.

Must be said that, since, I'm not new to similar problems, I have my home folder mounted on a separate partition. So, even if I need to format the boot disk, I have no fear for my data.

EEEPC 900

After the experience of upgrading the desktop computer I disabled the screen-lock on the EEEPC before starting the upgrade application. The upgrade process proceeded without any problems.
The EEEPC works fine with the new Ubuntu-Gnome release but it shows some odd error message during boot I never noticed before:
Sometimes, just after GRUB menu, it gives a worrying message about a malformed file, in addition it shows this message later during the boot process.

[drm:i915_stolen_to_physical] *ERROR* conflict detected with stolen region: [0x7f800000 – 0x80000000]

I'll check soon on the 'net for possible causes of these problems but I could also decide for a fresh install of the whole system.

Java JDK 8 and Netbeans 8 on the EEEPC

With the recent release of the long awaited Java 8 Oracle also released the latest version of its development environment Netbeans. JDK8 and Netbeans have been made available as single updates or together in a bundled package. Since I wasn't fully satisfied from my recent upgrade to Netbeans 7.4 I was more than willing to upgrade.

Installation

The bundled package is in the form of the usual self-executable file Oracle provides to distribute Netbeans installations, let me say the installation process couldn't be easier.

I executed the installation file from shell …

chmod +x jdk-8-nb-8-linux-i586.sh

sudo ./jdk-8-nb-8-linux-i586.sh

the installation wizard started

Netbeans 7.4 on the EEEPC 900

It has been a while since last time I wrote about Netbeans installation on the EEEPC 900. I usually use Eclipse as my preferred Java IDE, both at work and at home, but on the nine inch EEEPC display Eclipse has too many parts falling off-screen. I so started using Netbeans on the EEEPC and, as the time passed, I learned appreciating it.

Installation

Installing Netbeans on Linux is quite simple: I downloaded the installation script made it executable and started it like following:

chmod +x netbeans-7.4-javase-linux.sh
sudo ./netbeans-7.4-javase-linux.sh

Then I just followed the wizard instructions:

Upgraded the EEEPC 900 RAM

I at last decided to buy a 2GB SO-DIMM to install on my old EEEPC 900. The installation process has been quite simple just matter of unscrewing the rear cover, unplugging the old module and replacing it with the new one.

The EEEPC performances have been improved only marginally, at least during everyday uses. By the way the upgrade did cost me only 25€.

So this short post is mostly a reminder, to my readers and myself, that all test I'll do on the EEEPC since now will be with the upgraded 2GB RAM and not with the original EEEPC 900 configuration.

Test drive : Ubuntu 13.10 “Saucy Salamander” (Nightly Build)

The upgrade season is coming again. As I do twice a year I downloaded from Ubuntu download page the currently available version (not called beta anymore) of the October Ubuntu release. I prepared my USB disk in order to test the incoming release live on my computers.

On the EEEPC 900

After booting from the USB disk everything proceeded regularly until I arrived to the “Try or Install” screen. The top panel appears oddly expanded down to almost half screen.

Test Drive : Linux Deepin 12.12 on the EEEPC

Some time ago, while looking for some Linux related new on the 'net, I read this review about a Linux distribution I never heard before: Deepin.

Deepin is a Linux Distribution, based on Ubuntu, originally created for the Chinese users pool but also available in English language. Apart from positive reviews what really interested me has been the fact Deepin comes with its own desktop environment (Deepin DE) based on Gnome Shell.

I so decided to test how it works on the EEEPC.

First impressions

I prepared a bootable USB disk with Deepin with the usual process: download the ISO image from Deepin download page then write to the flash disk using Unetbootin.

Here is how Deepin looks like just after boot:

I must say Deepin default theme and wallpaper appear aesthetically well refined. This means nothing on the long run but might be dramatically important to give a good first impression to new users.

Back to Ubuntu : installed Ubuntu Gnome 13.04 on the EEEPC

I've been using Mint 12 on the EEEPC since February 2012. it worked fine all this time but, what I really missed was the ability to upgrade the distribution to a new release without the need of a full installation. After the recent positive test I eventually decided to install on my net-book Ubuntu Gnome 13.04.

Installation

As usual the installation process begun by backing-up my home folder and preparing a bootable USB disk. I booted the EEEPC from the USB disk and started the installation program. The installation sequence was definitively the same I encountered while installing Ubuntu. Like then, the only interesting part has been the disk partitioning part. I use the 4GB SSD EEEPC disk as boot disk for windows (I like to play some old games every now and then) so I must be sure the installation goes all on the 16GB secondary SSD.

I selected the “Something else” custom partitioning option that brings to the partition editor.

Unfortunately the disk partitioning tool is bigger than the EEEPC 900 screen: here is the full window (I got it with the 'alt-print screen' screen-shot shortcut)

Test Drive: Ubuntu 13.04 “Raring Ringtail” Beta on the EEEPC

As usual, with the coming of Spring, also Ubuntu's upgrade season is coming. I so went on the 'net looking for a beta version to give a look at, just to know what to expect when the real upgrade will arrive.

No beta version?

I was a bit startled to learn that beta versions has been released only for derivative distributions while, under new distribution policies, main Ubuntu only goes through a “freeze” period of bug-fixing. I had so to download a “daily-built” version to make my bootable USB disk.

First impressions

Here is the new Ubuntu first screen-shot

apart from some slight graphic change there aren't many changes at a first glance, anyway the new Unity is still fluid and responsive even on my good-old EEEPC 900.

Linux Mint (on the EEEPC): fixing some post-installation issues

The installation (upgrade) of Linux Mint 12 on my EEEPC left the system with some little problem to be solved together with many applications that had to be reinstalled. Not all of these problems are Mint-specific since one, at least, hat its solution reported on a Ubuntu forum. And I'm not also sure if these problems appears after upgrading from Ubuntu to Mint 12 or after a fresh installation too. By the way all have been solved with a couple of shell commands. I spent more time looking for solutions than executing them, so I hope it might be useful to have them all in the same page.

Missing Windows boot option

The first thing I noticed once I rebooted the EEEPC just after installing Linux Mint was that the Windows boot opting was missing from the Grub boot menu. After a brief looking for it in the 'net I did find on Mint forum a couple of commands to solve it:

sudo os-prober

sudo update-grub