Acer Aspire One
19-aug-2010,
Acer stolen.
The AA1 lived with me for two years. I confess I didn't use it much. Last week I was burgled and it was amongst the things stolen. For the record here is the serial number etc.
AOA 110-Ab
p/n LU.SO30A.044
model no. ZG5
s/n LUS030A0448280482F2500
I'm never sure whether those are "zeros" or an upper-case letter "O". They should slash the zeros or stop using them all together in mixed letter/number serial "numbers".
19-aug-2008,
I saw an AAO in Tandy yesterday. It was sending ESP messaging that I should buy it. I resisted and did my homework first. I tried to buy one today from Officeworks in Brisbane but they were out of stock.
The machine comes in two versions. The cheapest ($400 at Officeworks after cash back) in Linux based, disk less, with 512 meg of RAM and has 8 gig of flash storage.
The XP version is $145 more but has one gig ram and 120 gig hard drive instead of flash.
I've decided on the XP version but want to run linux on it.
I had a play with the display machines and the linux model works quite well. I think it would be fine for linux novices.
The AAO already has a following and users have installed other linux flavours and even XP on the cheap model.
I'm sure there will be people buying the XP version and either wiping XP or dual booting it if it is at all possible. I object to buying another XP license I won't use.
20'th,
I'm kinda wondering if I could ghost the hard drive onto DVD and do a clean linux install.
Time to see if Ipswich Officeworks still have stock.
After seeing the Tnkgrl video (link below) and seeing the flash could be replaced with a drive - I was leaning towards getting the linux version. Just as well because that was all they had in the shop.
So far so good. I couldn't get connection sharing work from my XP box but I'm pretty sure that is an XP problem not an AAO problem.
I haven't played with the AAO all that much yet but so far so good.
21'st,
A mixed bag.
The AAO worked (mostly) fine today but I got motion sick using it on the train. Ten minutes seems about all I can do at a time. Everyone at work loved it and Arjan is saving his pennies for one.
I tried to get it working on the QUT wireless network but couldn't because the IT help desk wasn't very helpful.I could connect to the unsecured network which just shows me an unhelpful help page.
Shell access
What many readers will want to know is can you access shell - yes you can.
Arjan manage to get a shell console up using the file manager.
You can access /usr/bin and get at all the goodies.
This is one way to launch a shell terminal |
Alternatively you can search for "terminal" on the main screen.
Launch shell via search |
If you enable the right click menu you can launch most common apps including terminal from that.
You can also hack the config to access xfce desktop but this unnecessary for getting shell access.
a shell terminal. Auto complete is handy. |
You could probably launch most apps via the file manager. You can also drop aliases in more convenient places.
The boabab disk analizer |
Strangely boabab seems to see a 16 gig file system.
My old wireless card isn't supported anymore on my home XP box so I bought a cheap USB/wifi card. I can't seem to connected to it and it appears the AAO can't connected to ad-hoc networks - everything seems difficult at the moment. It looks like I need a home wifi access point 😑
I did run out off battery charge on the way home but today is an unusual day with a lot more use than normal. I'll probably get a second (3'rd party) charger for work.
Online at last.
23'rd,
Online at last. Nerdipedia as seen on the AAO via a cheap D-Link wireless router and cable connection. |
I enable the right click menu by type xfce-settings-show in shell and changing the options. This is handy.
I tried using YUM to install mono but I think it worked.
YUM tagged a zillion feroda files for update as well but seemed to fail because if a (gecko) dependency.
I had trouble putting the mono.repo into yum.repos.d because of a permissions problem and changed the permissions via shell/root
24'th,
Briefly ran xfc desktop - had to fix permissions again. A few things like screen capture and file manager didn't work (properly) so I went back the the kiddies desktop again by modifying xfce4-session.rc using writer.
I bought $15 prostat optical USB mini-mouse. I plugged it in and it worked straight away. Both mice work simultaneously.
However the mouse doesn't fully power down in sleep and it doesn't work after sleeping.
You really need to unplug and replug it.
Installing gcc was trivial using YUM.
I tried to install monodevelop but failed.
YUM seems to know about monodevelop but again there was a dependency problem.
27'th.
Arjan bought an AAO as well so we will have a linux guru on the case soon.
19'th Sept.
It looks like win-CE will also be an option for the cheaper AAO.
See http://www.windowsfordevices.com/news/NS6976598029.html
30'th Sept,
The plug pack stopped working. I've borrowed some power from my dell notebook charger and this works fine but isn't as neat and portable. I'm not going to hassle with getting acer to replace it. I'll see if there is an obvious component fault and if not I'll buy a generic 3'rd party charger.
External links
Good hack video by tnkgrl showing AAO insides, mods and assembly.
http://tnkgrl.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/modding-the-acer-aspire-one-bluetooth/
http://eeepc.net/modified-acer-aspire-one-with-added-hard-drive/
To access xfce desktop etc.
http://jorge.ulver.no/2008/08/06/acer-aspire-one-tips-and-tricks/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acer
www.acer.com.au
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ShPGRQE3qE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InfFpnNJ7Sw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspire_One
Linpus review.
http://www.linuxhaxor.net/2008/09/15/linpus-linux-lite-review/
eddie