TuxRunner

Next attempt at getting a fairly stable copy of Linux on my Cloudbook: Ubuntu 8.04 LTS.  I decided to give this a try because of a few comments I found on the Netbook User Forums talking about some changes that were made into the 2.6.26 kernel and beyond which may have introduced more instability with the Cloudbook.  I’d really like to run the latest version of Ubuntu/Mint, but if it’s actually more troublesome than the older version…forget it, I just want a nice usable device.

Ran into a couple of gotchas already with just installing it.  First, I don’t have an external CD/DVD drive I can use to do the install.  So I have to resort to installing from USB thumb drive.  I found a great little program called Unetbootin which allows you to take just about any Linux ISO and make a USB thumb drive bootable and put a copy of that ISO on it.  It also has a decent list of “known” distros that it can automatically download the ISO for, and then create the bootable USB thumb drive. (continue reading…)

You know, at one time I had really wanted to get behind this company’s products.  I bought this Cloudbook netbook and thought this would be one wicked cool little laptop.  It would be too, if it would RUN LINUX well.  This is probably my 4th attempt at getting a distro on it that worked without locking up and giving me troubles.  I go in waves…I try finding a distro for like a week, and then I end up giving up and putting Windows XP on it.

I hate that!  Windows XP shouldn’t work better.  This is a netbook!  These things were destined for Linux!  Seriously, there’s apparently quite a nasty bug in the design of the hardware on this device, and the latest Linux kernels just not cooperating.  This usually results in a lockup of the USB-based keyboard and trackpad (and power button for that matter).  The computer doesn’t really lockup.  Some people have said you can plugin an external mouse or keyboard and still use it, but it does make it so you can’t use the power button or wifi button.  Plus, it’s rather annoying if you’re out and about with your netbook. (continue reading…)

Ok, I’ll put this out there right off the bat so you know why I posted this article (it’s really not a huge secret if you’ve read any of my previous blog postings.)  I’m a VIA user, my main laptop is using a VIA C7-M processor, so of course I’m somewhat biased on this.  Anyway…

http://tinyurl.com/6gl3vr – VIA reportedly set to roll out 45nm, dual-core processors by 2009 (continue reading…)