Upgraded the Sempron 2400 to Xubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot”

Just after Ubuntu new release also derivative distributions arrived as well. I so went through the upgrade process of the Xubuntu installation on my (old) desktop computer. I've been informed of the availability of the new release with the, almost daily, software update request. I then selected the “upgrade” button and let the whole process start.

the upgrade proceeded slowly but quite smooth, it showed some error in the process but it doesn't seem to have influenced the final result.

Test Drive: Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric Ocelot” Beta on the Sempron 2400

Since I heard that the new Ubuntu release would be based only on Gnome3 and Unity (the older release was a plain Gnome 2 version on “non-3D-capable” computers) I wondered how it would perform on older computers. So the second step of my “Test Drive”s has been to test Ubuntu 11.10 on my “still-alive” five years old Sempron 2400.

Boot _ errors _ and boot again

Ubuntu 11.10 beta is definitively a buggy beta, I already realized this while testing on the EEEPC but on the Sempron 2400 it looks even more buggy. I had to restart the boot process three times before arriving to Unity 2D main screen.

apart from these boot errors and some error message now and then, that also appeared on the EEEPC, the system did run smoothly enough.

Test drive: Unity-2d on the Sempron 2400

After the upgrade to Xubuntu 11.04 of my six years old desktop computer I decided to have a look how the new Unity desktop looks and works on a computer that isn't a netbook. Since the full “3D” Unity desktop seems not to work with my old configuration (Ubuntu live disk started with the “old” gnome desktop) I decided to install and test Unity-2D.

Unity 2D

Unity-2D is a desktop environment, developed with QT, designed to offer the same Unity interface experience on lower specification computers. Installing Unity-2D desktop from Ubuntu 11.04 is almost a trivial operation, since it's available in Ubuntu software centre, just matter of looking for the “unity-2d” package.

Upgraded my Sempron 2400 to Xubuntu 11.04

Ubuntu spring upgrade time continue … just a day after Ubuntu “Natty Narwhal” release also Xubuntu 11.04 has been made available. Since I already had positively tested the beta version on my desktop computer (Sempron 2400) I decided to go straight with upgrading it with the new release.

Synergy: how to make comfortable your netbook at home

Netbooks are, in my opinion, one of the most important innovations in mobile computing: they represent an unique mix of low price, flexibility and mobility. On the other hand netbooks lack a little on the ergonomic side. Netbook's small keyboards and mousepad aren't the most comfortable things to use, often they they are even less comfortable when your netbook is placed on the desk near your desktop computer.

A software solution to a hardware problem

External mouse and keyboard can, of course, be plugged to your netbook but this would mean having to deal with hardware switches, cables or, in case of wireless devices, Bluetooth configurations every time you switch between your desktop and your netbook computer.

Here comes Synergy: a simple utility that lets you use your desktop computer's mouse and keyboard to control your netbook without the need of any extra hardware but a network connection, in the most intuitive way by simply moving your mouse pointer off one side of the screen like you were using a single computer with two displays.

Upgrading to Xubuntu 10.10

As soon as the new release of XFCE4 based Ubuntu (Xubuntu) has been made available I decided to upgrade my desktop computer (Sempron 2400).

The upgrade process (Where my “upgrade invitation” is?)

As soon as I saw the new release available on Xubuntu home page I launched the update-manager program in order to upgrade but … I couldn't see usual upgrade to a new release button. After some time I discovered that, being current version a LTS, Xubuntu's upgrade manager was configured to only notify new LTS releases. After disabling that option I eventually got my release upgrade button.

Xubuntu 10.4 on Sempron 2400 (full install)

The third and last act of the upgrade season is the desktop computer (Sempron 2400) upgrade. Unfortunately, because my recent switch from Ubuntu to Xubuntu I suppose, I cannot proceed with a regular upgrade. The upgrade process stops after the sources gathering phase with this message.

I so decided to go for a plain install in order to, eventually, have a much cleaner system.

Before installing

Before installation I only had to back-up my home folder since all data I have are kept in the home folder or in NTFS partitions that will remain untouched by the installation process.

I then downloaded Xubuntu install disk image from its download page and prepared a boot disk on a 1GB USB disk using Ubuntu's boot disk creator.