Aspire One BIOS reflash, ramdisk on usb freedos boot

First thing to do is a quick google for it, and you should find this very helpful page .

At time of writing, latest version is 3309, so go get that.  I used the windows version of unetbootin, which makes life easy.

I'd used unetbootin to try out moblin and ubuntu nbr (jaunty) on me old aspire one, and it created the boot disks perfectly.  But, this was flashing a previously downloaded img, not choosing a distro at the top.  

 I've got a set of 5 identical 2gb usb sticks (dane-elec, from 7dayshop about £15 for now, right here ) so I knew it wasn't the usb sticks.

Anyway, part of the reflash instructions are basically to create a FreeDOS boot stick, by choosing FreeDOS from unebootin, booting it, and using that DOS prompt to run the batch file that Acer gives you.  Easy.

But...  every time I went to boot the usb drive, it started, but gave an obscure "Could not load ramdisk image: /ubninit"   Curious.

A whole bunch of googling came up with some crazy ideas, none of which worked.  On the way, I discovered macles blog , which is very useful also, so gets a thumbs up.   But still, no luck.

Then I thought; i'm running behind a VPN, which has a proxy connection out the internet.  So, close all that down, and allow my XP machine to reach the internet raw, i.e. directly via my ADSL.

This time, unetbootin spent a good few minutes - with a nice progress bar - actually downloading FreeDOS.  The memory stick had a few more files than before...  And after all that, it booted, and I could run the firmware update.  (for interest, bios reflash took about 5 minutes, although I wasn't timing it - it's really easy and you can see it progressing...)

So, unebootin isn't proxy aware; instead, it will fail the download, and create a partial usb image, which won't boot.  Make sure you have direct internet connection before using it to download distros.

install freeciv SDL client on Aspire One linpus

Not sure why, but this was a hassle; how to run a workable freeciv on the AA1 linux version.  First of all, make sure you haven't installed freeciv from the normal fedora repository; it will use the GTK client and it won't fit onscreen (it's 1024x768).  Remove it.  The easy way then...

(all commands as root / sudo)

1. head to www.freeciv.org, and look in the unofficial distributions (or go here )
2. choose the fedora 8 version (of 2.1 for now) c/o VJSchiavoni
3. ignore that completely...   :-)    although for investigative purposes, note that each rpm is stored on Andy Jamison's website / repository...  [AJRepo]
4. ... which is here .
5. then ignore that completely, since his "get the Repo RPM" (v1.4) download doesn't work...  :-/   [404 file not found]
6. google for the rpm for "ajrepo noarch.rpm"; you'll probably find v2.2 here 
7. click that, and the repository should install
8. run up a terminal (alt-ft, run terminal), and head to /etc/yum repos directory (whose name escapes me, but it's obvious - called yum.repo.d or somesuch)
9. ensure that the repo config file for ajrepo is enabled; edit the file and it will probably have enabled=0, so change that to a 1
10. run a quick sudo yum install freeciv-client-sdl
11. that will work out it needs server and all sorts of things...  so say yes, it'll fetch it all, and install
12. for some reason (i'm sure there's logic somewhere) the client is installed in /etc/alternatives
13. run it, and be pleased...   set it to 1024x768 to fit, and choose fullscreen ...
14. ... then note that the full screen settings aren't sticky (restart of client is not fullscreen)
15. so head to user directory (ie just cd not as root) and edit the .civclientrc file (named something like that, again, it's obvious).   It has a fullscreen=0, so change that to 1

In game, use fn + keys with blue numbers to move using numeric keypad...

Acer Aspire One

I bought one of these recently, the 8gb ssd + 512k Linux version, £199 from PC World.

And I really like it, it turns on really quickly, attaches to wifi, and i'm browsing.

Recommended reading: first, El Reg's top 10 tips, then Aspire One Forum.

In a nutshell, I found the command line hackery more useful.  Run a terminal and enable desktop menu, and add the livna repositories, install VLC.  Install Skype.

I use a 4gb sd card in my work laptop, and use SyncToy to copy all my work documents to it regularly (so i've the originals on the hdd, and a copy on the sd).  Then, if i'm away on business, I pop the sd card in my acer, and away I go.  OpenOffice does a relatively good job at rendering my stuff, only issues seem to be some font choices in powerpoint, but not a showstopper.  Also, too many OpenOffice documents slow things down rather a lot.

I also bought a 16gb sd card too (here, from ebuyer) which works a treat; placed in the permanent sd slot, it merges it quite nicely.  I then copy films & music over from my external usb hdd easily enough.  For some reason, it complains about space sometimes - not sure why.  The 16gb card inherits your home directory, so i've a funny feeling it's some weirdness due to the merge (with nasty looking df nonsense if you look...)

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

Debian -- The Universal Operating System

Given up with DSL, far too much hassle...

Installed basic Debian 3.1 Sarge, all perfect.

No GUI, although i'm tempted to put gnome on there. First attempt required a lot of minute details on the graphics hardware, which i'd expected it would probe it...

Apache2 and Samba out of the box. Can't quite get a samba share to open up /var/www, may dig some more.

Post install addons of use:
- ntp and various sub-packages
- telnetd for local tinkering from mac
- maybe ssh or some variant

Happy...

Xubuntu - Xfce and Ubuntu Dynamite

Xubuntu - Xfce and Ubuntu Dynamite

Just what I wanted, except I couldn't get it to install on my old machine (as per previous post).

Both live and alternate CDs give ACPI errors; easily solved with an acpi=off boot parameter..

Live CD whined about hardware detection during install boot (most others ok), popped up an (text gui form) error about X not detecting stuff, then dumped back to command line. But had that weird

root@host>
root@host>
root@host>

type staggering.

Alternate CD did better, realised it was a low memory machine (and said so) except sat there for at least several hours before doing nothing...

Back to DSL...

Damn Small Linux (DSL), 50 megabytes of penguin power

Damn Small Linux (DSL), 50 megabytes of penguin power

... and it's the only small linux I can install - frugally, not from live CD.

Spec: P166, 64mb, 4gb HD, CD, floppy, 2 x USB - and the worst bit - no CD booting...

Both the DSL boot image, and also with smart boot manager.

Problem 1: DSL install CD doesn't seem to like it if the partition to install to isn't ext2. Since the box had Windows [95!] on it, it barfed and didn't seem to give me the partition tool; instead, it booted into CD mode happily enough, but that didn't give me cfdisk...

Soooo, dig out an old old Red Hat 7 CD, and install that. At least during the install you can partition. Once partitions written, reboot and try with DSL on nice ext2. Lovely.

Now I need to work out
a) how the file_install business works
b) install Samba