For example terminal server client and it's panel-applet, woop-de-doo.

Another problem that popped in front of me was opening programs with a launcher from the panel. The command was luit -encoding ISO-8859-1 ssh hostname because the ssh server I'm using quite actively does not have UTF8 configured. However, my Xubuntu Hardy installation happens to come with UTF8 as default and I've intended to keep it as default.

I tried to put the command where it was supposed to bein the panel launcher properties, no luck. Tried to use xfce4-terminal shell-script-name to launch the command from panel launcher, no luck.

Finally, with help from few of my friends, I found out that I can use xterm -e luit -encoding ISO-8859-1 ssh hostname which solved the problem. -e tells that xterm should run the preceeding command IN the opened xterm window. But this created another. The font size was ridiculously small. After few moments of discussion, it was clear that one option for xterm execution was needed. The final execution command line is below:
xterm -fn 9x15 -e luit -encoding ISO-8859-1 ssh hostname

To check which font options you have available, check /usr/share/fonts/X11/misc/fonts.alias file. 8x13, 9x15 and 10x20 should be there atleast. 8x13 is ridiculously small, 9x15 was my choice, 10x20 was too large for this Acer Aspire One screen.

Speed was almost the same at first, but after I've downloaded and installed the softwares I needed to run on the computer (eg. Open Office, Mplayer and so on), it was slightly slower compared to Vector Linux. That's the price we pay for graphics I guess. Overall, I would choose Vector Linux as it was faster but wait.... when I installed Vector Linux on my computer, I logged in using a different desktop environment which was Fluxbox. It was way faster and not bad looking. It will be hard at first to get used to it, but I do enjoy the speed and the graphics are ok. It has the AWN kind of dock or a dock like MAC, not exactly the same but almost and it is fast not slow like AWN.

I guess the nest would be Linux Mint(fluxbox) and Fluxbuntu. Why? It's because it is based on Ubuntu so that means it would be easier to handle compared to Slackware and others which most people don't want to learn. If you're more into technology then you should try out something harder like downloading debian, gentoo, slackware or any other major distros and start from the basics.

Screenshot of Xubuntu:

I've been using this little bugger now for few days with Xubuntu Hardy 8.04.1 and thought that a part #2 post would be good. Otherwise the Edits to older posts will be unnoticed and important notes might "fade to the noise".

So, those few things I've promised to try out:

Movie playback
Playing movie that has been ripped to .iso file from external usb hard drive works fine
Playing movie that has been ripped to .iso file from 8Gb SDHC card placed to Storage Expansion slot (formatted as ext2) works fine
Playing actual DVD from DVD-drive connected to usb - You need to install xubuntu-restricted-extras ($ sudo apt-get install xubuntu-restricted-extras - works fine

At this point some of you are asking "why/how is he using DVD movies ripped into .iso files?". Quick and dirty answer is that I have most of movies backed up as .iso files, and I don't have to carry an external DVD drive with me to watch movies.
To get the movies to .iso, I use dvd95 program to "compress" the original DVD to fit to DVD5 disc in case I need to burn the movies back to disk. Kids are quite efficient in destroying DVD's.. and no, I'm not concerned about the quality. If I want top quality, I'll go and buy full HD TV or projector and BluRay-player.
When I've moved the .iso file to the PC I want to watch it, I'll mount it as loop device with command $ sudo mount -o loop /path/to/the/isofile /path/for/desired/mountpoint. remember to have the mountpoint folder created. Then open vlc and point it to open the DVD from the mountpoint you used.

Heat dissipation
Ok, this one I noticed yesterday late at night. I was sitting in bed with a small pillow under the laptop for some time. The laptop started to really heat up and the reason seems to be that almost all of the ventilation grille is pointing down and only small part of the grille is facing to the side from the case. As the pillow was blocking the grille facing down, the heat could not dissipate well enough. Not a big deal, but still something to bare in mind.

Touchpad
I'm not a fan of this kind of pointer device. Stick is much more user friendly, though it costs much more and replacement part price for keyboard with stick is ridiculous. First few days went on finding the correct setting to disable Touchpad tapping and scrolling. To disable tapping and scrolling, you need to modify xorg.conf file. Open terminal of your favor and..

$ sudo mcedit /etc/X11/xorg.conf
now find the part that says
Section "InputDevice"
Identifier "Synaptics Touchpad"

Add the following line to the end of this section, above the EndSection
Option "TouchpadOff" "2"

Now log out and back in, result should be that touchpad is not scrolling anymore, and tapping is disabled.

External display settings
This I'm still working on.. I'll edit this post as soon as I've got some solid settings/info gathered.

EDIT:
Screensaver and lock screen
As I use this computer at work, it's vital for me to be able to lock the screen when I leave my desk. By default, Xubuntu seems to have a bug that prevents screensaver and thus screen locking to execute. To fix it, you need to add gnome-screensaver to autostarted apps under Settings - Settings Manager.
Click + Add then enter a preferred name, for example Gnome-Screensaver, description can be for example Gnome Screensaver Daemon and command is /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver and hit Ok. Log out and back in, modify screensaver settings to your desired choice, then right click the little icon for Quit-button in panel and click on properties and select action type as Quit + Lock screen.

Tsclient and tsclient panel applet
Again an work-required program/tool issue. As I work also with several Windows servers, I need to have terminal server client (RDP client) installed, with panel-applet so it's fast and easy to open connections to remote servers.
Install tsclient package ($ sudo apt-get install tsclient) and try that it works. Create one quick connect entry as saving connection details for testing purposes. Now install xfce4-xfapplet-plugin ($ sudo apt-get install xfce4-xfapplet-plugin) and right click on panel - add new item. Browse to end of the list, click on Xfapplet, then Add, and then choose Terminal Server Client Applet. Terminal server panel applet should now show up on your panel.

Well, if u are expecting an update for the intrepid alpha release announcement, it's 4th release now. BlankOn has not yet release any jahitan. It consider to release on august, 28 for the 1st jahitan. Please refer to its mailing-list to know more about the BlankOn Development.

And here is a little but big announcement, my friend on Ubuntu-id named imtheface has back!! Hahaha.. Welcome back, dude!!

Well just it for now, see u around :D

Get the latest madwifi pack http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-current.tar.gz and save it to your home folder for example.

Disable current Atheros Hardware Access Layer (HAL) and Support for Atheros 802.11 wireless lan cards from Applications - System - Hardware Drivers and then reboot as requested

Make sure that ath_hal module is not loaded in the future:

$ sudo mcedit /etc/default/linux-restricted-modules-common

Add ath_hal between the quotation marks, for example DISABLED_MODULES="ath_hal"

Unpack the downloaded tar.gz

$ tar xzvf madwifi-hal-yaddayadda.tar.gz

Cd into the new folder scripts under the new unpacked madwifi folder

Execute madwifi-unload and find-madwifi-modules.sh scripts
$ sudo ./madwifi-unload
$ sudo ./find-madwifi-modules.sh $(uname -r)

Drop one level back,
$ cd ..

and just to be sure, execute make clean to get rid of old crap
$ make clean

Then we check just to be sure that the Hardware Drivers does not show any drivers for Atheros wlan or HAL. If the window is clean, proceed to building the modules.

$ make
$ sudo make install
$ sudo modprobe ath_pci

Then, check that you have ath0 and wifi0 network adapters created, ath0 should be the first, wifi0 last. You might need to scroll back a bit
$ ifconfig

Now you should be able to see AP's via panel's network applet. You can also scan for wlan's with command
$ sudo wlanconfig ath0 list scan

That's it, happy networking! ;)

When you get updates/upgrades that change kernel in any way, your wireless card drivers won't work anymore. Just do the whole thing all over again and you're wireless again.

EDIT: If the driver is not loaded automatically, you can add ath_pci to /etc/modules
Here's the commands:

$ sudo mcedit /etc/modules
add ath_pci into a new LAST line of the document, save the document and reboot.
If you don't want to reboot right away, you can type

$ sudo modprobe ath_pci

This loads the module(driver) and you should have wlan up and running then. Just remember when you reboot the next time that you added the module to "loaded at startup" configuration.

Got one of these little subnotebooks to my hands for a short period and here's a small summary about it.

So far I've tried out the Linpus Linux preinstalled to the laptop very briefly, as it had to make way for Windows XP SP3. Yep, got that right and no, it was not pleasure. Pain would describe the experience more.

Biggest reason is the very slow SSD hard drive. It just isn't even feasible with Windows. Not even if you try to use fast SD card on the storage expansion slot for swap. It's quite easy to get devices work in XP, as Acer kindly provides drivers for the laptop.

So, that was covered fast. Then to the part that was more interesting for me personally. Xubuntu 8.04.1 in a very, very small laptop. I was a bit afraid how the keyboard would fit for me, as i'm almost two meters tall. So far, I've had at least decent experience with it.

Biggest problem with the laptop and Xubuntu is the wireless card. It won't work "off the shelf" and little tweaking was needed. Installation instructions will be posted on a separate quide and I will also post a separate post about device technical spesifications and how I installed Xubuntu to it.

Everything else seems to work out of the box.

As the out of the box configuration has only 512Mb of memory, I did an memory upgrade also. Didn't take any pictures though, so we'll have to see if I come across dismantling the laptop again. Will take pictures then, I promise! Verbal instructions coming up in a separate post also.

After the upgrade, things seemed a bit faster, but that was when the XP was installed. Xubuntu was installed onto the laptop with the additional memory already in place.

Next things to try out include bluetooth connectivity to phone to gain mobile internet over GPRS/EDGE/3G and how well the battery lasts in usual work/everyday usage. Also thought to try out playing videos, I have some movies in MPEG4 H264 which should stress the video playback enough. More about those when I have some experience..

EDIT: Tried to get Bluetooth connectivity to phone and internet-access via that way, and was not too hard. Biggest part is to find out correct settings for your service provider and phone model. Rest is just finding out correct channel etc. (I think I need to dump a post about using BT and mobile phone as internet connectivity)

Also, video playback seems to work out fine, just remember to ditch Totem Movie Player and get VLC. Tried with MPEG4 H.264 clip. Still need to try out DVD-playback with DVD-drive connected to USB and .iso file from internal storage and external USB drive..

Battery life with 3cell version is weak. There's few tweaks that should help out, just remember to keep backlight as low as your eyes can take..

So I started thinking, "Why does a person need to spend even a few hundred bucks on hardware and a bloated OS (I'm talking about you, Windows), if they're going to do most of their activities through a web browser?" I mean, that notion reminds me of The Simpsons episode in which Homer goes to buy a computer. Homer tells the sales guy that he needs it for email, to which the sales guy replies, "Oh, you'll need a top of the line computer for that."

I set out to build an Internet PC, whose only function would be to get me on the Internet. The only other application that will run is the XMMS media player so I can access my favorite Electronic/Techno/Trance streams at DI.fm . Everything else will be done in a browser.

I got an old Pentium III PC from work. It has a 10GB hard drive and 256MB of RAM. Then I had to find an OS that would run on those specs. Windows XP would run on it, but not very well, and I wanted this experiment to be more cutting-edge than running an OS released in 2002. I tried installing the Ubuntu distribution of Linux, but that was still too much OS for this old PC. Xubuntu, an off-shoot of Ubuntu, was developed for older PCs, so that's what I installed.

It's about to get a little geeky now, so if you have a weak stomach, you should skip this next paragraph.

When my system is idle, processor utilization runs about 8% and the system uses about 88MB of its 256 megs of RAM. When I start my XMMS media player, the processor goes to about 12% and RAM usage goes to about 92MB. An idle FireFox pegs the processor at around 22%, and the system consumes about 130MB. So these are great numbers, and indicative of a lean OS that doesn't have to run unnecessary processes in the background, like some OSes. And my old computer can avoid the recycle graveyard for a little longer.

XMMS runs fines; the audio stream is clear and smooth. Opening pages and apps within FireFox is a little slow, but still functional. Watching videos at Hulu is impossible. The video was just too choppy, and my processor was pegged at 100%. A Family Guy clip at YouTube played ok, but at least it was watchable. I'm not likely to watch videos on the desktop, any way. If I going to watch videos on a computer, I'll grab my MacBook and get comfy on the couch. So the video thing is not really a problem.

I'm up for some testing, so if you know of an even leaner flavor of Linux, let me know. I still want to run XMMS and Firefox in it, though.

Overall, I'm calling my Internet PC experiment a success. I took an old PC that has no other value and turned it into a usable device. I've no idea how often I will use it, but at least I know it can be done. And this post is even being written on my Linux Internet machine.

La verdad no puedo decidir cuál de los 3 es "el mejor" para mí. Actualmente utilizo Ubuntu, pero con el paso del tiempo estoy seguro de que iré alternando entre uno y otro.

Espero que les sirva este post al elegir su versión de Ubuntu.
Saludooos :P

The limited storage space is not really a problem as I originally got it as replacement to my 2GB iPaq PDA that died some years ago.  After a few weeks of playing around with the eee PC I realised it was much more, it had the power of a traditional laptop PC.

I use it as a Ultra Mobile PC with most of my storage on-line with my server which I connect to via SSHFS. It can be a little slow to access large files but anything large and important I can dump on to an encrypted USB Flash drive.

Expect some more posts about what applications I use, my hardware/software configuration and the projects I am working on with it.

Hanya mau berbagi saja bagi teman-teman para pecinta ubuntu dan teman-teman yang ingin tau seperti apa itu distro ubuntu.

Full Circle Magazine yang dikomandani Kang Ronnie Tucker sebagai editornya sekarang telah menerbitkan 15 edisi elektronik magazine yang dapat didownload gratis di sini. E-zine (Elektronik Magazine) ini berisi ulasan tentang review aplikasi, tutorial dan hal-hal lain yang berhubungan dengan Distro Ubuntu dan turunannya (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Edubuntu etc).

Jika teman-teman punya artikel menarik tentang Ubuntu, teman-teman juga bisa mengirimkan artikel tersebut ke alamat e-mail: articles@fullcirclemagazine.org. Selain itu teman-teman  yang mempunyai skill bahasa Inggris yang mumpuni bisa juga ikut menerjemahkan magazine ini ke dalam bahasa Indonesia agar teman-teman lain yang kurang cakap bahasa Inggrisnya bisa ikut menikmati majalah ini tanpa membolak-balik kamus :).

referensi:

1. http://www.fullcirclemagazine.org
2. http://wiki.ubuntu.com/UbuntuMagazine

Link download:

1. http://xfile.us/index.php?p=view&id=RpuwQw&
2. http://fullcirclemagazine.org/download