TuxRunner

I’ve been running Puppy Linux 4.2.1 for a while on my netbook, and wanted to post about it before I wipe it to try out another distro.  Puppy went on there out of a frustration I had with my netbook only being able to run Windows XP and be useable.  I own an Everex Cloudbook (the original one) with a VIA C7-M processor in it.  Not exactly a mainstream CPU, so I always have had troubles with Linux on it.  Everex seems to have no problem supporting Windows, as they supply drivers that work nicely with the hardware.  But Linux has always been buggy on this device

The main problem I had with Linux on the Cloudbook was with a bug which causes the built-in USB keyboard/trackpad to lock up.  When this happens, the only way you can get around it is to pull the battery.  I’m not sure why it doesn’t happen in Windows, but seems with any stock kernel from distros I’ve installed this is always a problem.  I know there’s work being done on some of the Cloudbook community sites to custom compile a kernel and modules that work flawless on the Cloudbook, but I’ve honestly had decent luck with just tweaking some settings on the kernel module for dynamic CPU clock scaling on the Cloudbook. (continue reading…)