Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix

If you have been following my posts in the last few days you'll know that I have been having issues with my Acer Aspire One. The good news is: I now have it up and running with Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix and it runs like a dream.

I could not connect using wireless with Ubuntu 9.04 after I did a software update. The wireless card was seeing the networks around me – including my own and an ad hoc one I created – but it would not connect. I tried quite a few different netbook live CD's – booting from a USB flash drive – to see if they could access the network but no joy.

I wondered if the wireless was in fact broken or just switched off. Aspire One's have a switch that allows the user to switch off wireless to conserve power. There is a little light next to an icon that tells you if you have the wireless on or off. The only thing is only the original software supports this little light. The switch to control the wireless is not a simple on/off switch – that would make life too easy. No, the designers had something else in mind that they might have found cool but I find annoying. To switch wireless on or off you slide the switch to the right and then it springs back to its original position – the action of sliding the switch toggles the wireless on or off. They could have saved themselves a huge amount of complexity by simply using an on/off switch and removing the indicator light.

As I had no means of knowing if the wireless was disabled in hardware or not I toggled the switch, rebooted and tried to connect. I did this a few times, always with the same result – a list of wireless networks but no way of connecting. Until two days ago when it connected. I'm not sure what happened but I do know I allowed the battery to drain completely. My hypothesis is the following:

Either way I have wireless back now and working incredibly fast – the connection is almost instant when I power on the computer. When it was working using the previous version it would take up to a minute after it had finished booting to connect. Many times I had already opened FireFox and would be waiting for a network connection.

Everything about this version is so much quicker than the previous. Boot time is much quicker, the desk top is available in less time. The mouse doesn't have any lag – using the previous version a mouse movement would start with a pause then it would catch up. Not any more. Opening the different tabs for the different types of applications is instant, before it would take a few seconds. Launching applications is so much quicker and FireFox renders web pages at the same speed as my MacBook.

There are three things that have hampered my using of my NetBook in the past:

To get a decent battery life I would need to spend the best part of £60 there is no way that I am going to do that on something I don't use on a regular basis because it is fiddly to type and slow to use. I would be better putting the money towards a MacBook Air. But with the speed increase I am more likely to use my netbook and the more I use it the better I will get at using the keyboard. I already find it easier to type on the netbook than I do on my iPhone.

Ubuntu has finally brought my netbook to life. I can see myself carrying it where ever I go so I can get some ideas down when the inspiration comes. I can also see my self getting value from a £60 battery upgrade.

And yes – I typed up this entry my Acer Aspire One.