Linpus is pretty restrictive, I opened Nautilus by clicking “Documents” on the home screen, then a terminal using “File->Terminal”. Running nm-applet from the command line reveals a segfault. Running “sudo nm-applet” doesn’t cause a segfault and allows a connection, obviously lacking access to the keyring. Once connected to a network, running the update application shows a new version of nm-applet available. I ran the updates, rebooted and the issue is solved. It must have been broken in the last set of updates, ran before the user lost nm-applet. I wasn’t near a wired connection, which would probably be picked up and also allow an update.

Hope this helps someone. It does illustrate the downside of obfuscation – in this case the user has no feedback as to why there is no network connection.

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As installations go, it was relatively painless – certainly better than reinstalling Windows. Don’t get me wrong, Dell is better than most in this respect as they gave us OEM install discs for Windows Vista, bundled software and the drivers.  As strait forward as this is with Dell’s resource CD (it mostly tells you what you need), it doesn’t know any more than what model you own. This is problematic with the wireless card for example as there are two revision states and the drivers are incompatible with each other – one crashes Windows.

Ubuntu 10.04 runs fine with one exception, its Broadcom wireless card – I found that enabling the restricted driver on installation caused a crash and that I had to remove linux-backports-modules-wireless-lucid-* before I could re-enable it on the installed system. I must confess, I didn’t bother to snag a bug report as it was probably me being impatient and trying to do too much at once.

Lisa knows her way around the Gnome desktop, we have used it on several machines and several distributions (she used to prefer KDE in it’s 1.x incarnations). Predominantly, this laptop is used online – we use Firefox on Windows so there’s no issues there.

The next day I realised I had made the cardinal error of switching someone to OSS – I hadn’t really considered her needs. I forgot about that shiny new piece of Apple hardware that she carries everywhere – an iPhone. I don’t have an iPhone and have never really taken more than a passing interest in the latest Apple hardware so I had no idea that you needed to use iTunes to do everything – including syncing. I checked the net and found that the general consensus was not to bother with it in Linux. I saw several howtos , all discussing changing iPhone firmware. With a year left on the contract, the thought of my wife’s reaction, Apple’s somewhat draconian lock-in and the potential to brick her phone I preferred not to take that course.

Even if I did, I think she might be reluctant to use it. Apple seem to achieved marketing zenith – when people refer to a brand name rather than what it is (Playstation, iPod, Coke, etc.), perhaps not with iPhone but certainly iTunes. Lisa is not the only person I have heard mention iTunes – so I had a good look over it. I see the positives – I organises music, applications, videos and applications well, structuring them on the device and the laptop; there is only one way to do everything, so it’s simple and memorable; purchasing is easy (I suppose it was bound to be) and seems trustworthy. It’s good old encapsulation – the mechanics of syncing, purchasing, organising, backing up, charging and updating are obscured and centralised. There are negatives but I have to say they’re not obvious to the average user – I don’t care for the way it overrides other software for example but in truth most Windows software does that too.

As I said earlier, Lisa is familiar with Ubuntu’s desktop and applications. She knows that it is maintained mostly by volunteers (better than most – she’s seen me doing it for many years). She even acknowledges advantages – faster booting, better stability and security – in particular viruses, which seem to be on every geek stick she receives (cloud computing hasn’t caught on amongst the charity she works with). She is annoyed that Apple haven’t made iTunes available for Ubuntu too but it doesn’t change anything. As we speed evermore to living online, the platform supporting those applications becomes less relevant. While this means we can happily forgo Window’s failings, it unfortunately works both ways – if the hardware we use doesn’t work with our chosen platform then we can switch.

If there’s anything I can take away from this its that Linux is a tool, one which I might be blinded to it’s negatives because of my involvement. Sometimes it isn’t the best solution for everyone so recommending it when its not appropriate might be detrimental. In this case, she thinks Apple are to blame but she could have assumed it was our fault as a distribution. If someone has never tried Ubuntu, then the worst the can really say when someone asks is that they don’t know – if their only experience is negative then there is a risk their assessment will follow suit. Perhaps, in some circumstances the best advocacy is not to advocate.

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Installation is painless, launching from a desktop icon and going through the same steps as Ubuntu.  I like the inclusion of encrypted filesystem support, enabled by ticking the box during the partitioning stage.  This is more important in the environment I work in than it might seem.  There have been a number of high profile cases of hard disks and laptops being lost within the MoD and it has taken steps to reduce this.  All our laptops now use Flagstone and we have had copies of PGP Desktop Encryption bought for us (it’s being distributed through Forces Gateway) for personal laptops.  When people look to me to assist them with a Linux install, encryption is always requested.

Speaking of Flagstone, it has a horrible interface.  Fedora’s looks nice as does the boot process in general.  The Fedora logo fills from white as the sequence completes.  While clever, it’s not as clear as a progress bar – I thought it was hung on initial boot.

Encrypted disk password entry

Once installed (which doesn’t take long), we’re presented with a first run configuration.  After a brief introduction to the license, we’re prompted to create the first user (Fedora uses a root account).  This would benefit from Ubiquity’s approach, where username is created from name.  Finally we set the time and are asked to submit our hardware profile.

The GDM login screen is welcoming enough, Redhat has put some effort into fingerprint scanning – so that appears too.  I haven’t a fingerprint scanner to test this with and the HP laptops we use at work running RHEL don’t have them enabled.

For users of systems other than Ubuntu, the Free Desktop login sound will be familiar.  As a fan of the Blubuntu theme, I also like the appearance.  The Gnome desktop is instantly familiar, with the network manager applet, desktop places and icons all where you expect.  Menus are sensibly laid out, the only caveats for those familiar with Ubuntu are that the terminal is in Applications->System Tools and that the shutdown and logout buttons are under System (as Ubuntu’s used to be).  There are also additional applications to configure a firewall, how users authenticate and to configure SELinux.

Fedora desktop

At this point, I might mention I’m using Virtual Box under Windows Vista (I keep the Ubuntu system clean on another machine).  Installing VBox Additions brings my first brush with package management in Fedora since FC4.  It has improved greatly, yum resolves dependencies well and works well from the command line with a similar syntax to apt-get.  Where it falls down is speed – everything seems to be checked before downloading then again before installing.  Strangely, Presto is available but not enabled by default.  Presto downloads delta RPMs – so only the part of the package which has changed is downloaded and upgraded.  This makes fo a significant reduction in downloads and hence faster updates.  I ran two updates, both averaging at a 73% reduction in size.

It also lacks some of Ubuntu’s better thought out groups and packages, build-essential for instance is obtained (for the most part) by “yum install make automake gcc gcc-c++ kernel-devel”.  It’s also worth noting that it also installed for a version of the kernel it hadn’t updated – preventing the installation of VBox Additions.

Fedora’s licensing policy is also rather restrictive, much more than Ubuntu’s.  I don’t disagree with this policy but it’s not immediately obvious how to obtain software such as VLC nor the rationale behind why it isn’t available.  However it doesn’t take long to find repositories such as RPM Fusion but I can imagine this being a stumbling block for many Ubuntu users who already frequently complain about software installation.

That said, Fedora’s update interface is excellent.  Icons are used to show the state of each update – downloading, installing, cleaning up and so forth as well as identifying updates as enhancements, security or bug fixes.  Coupled with a large description of the fix, notifications are clear – offering full or only security updates.  This is a nice touch, especially when you’re on a mobile broadband connection away from home.  PackageKit has the ability to automatically download codecs, as with Ubuntu.  However its a welcome addition to see that this now extends to the automatic addition of new fonts.

Clear update information

As mentioned earlier, Fedora has a root account enabled.  Ubuntu, users are used to using sudo, which is available and the alterations required to make it work are simple.

Pulseaudio is implemented, which seems to have had a mixed reception in Ubuntu.  I haven’t noticed any issues with this in Fedora and it seems well integrated.  I like Pulseaudio and think improved audio control is much needed for Linux to gain mainstream desktop acceptance.

The default filesystem is Ext4, which seems stable although I’m not running exhaustive tests on it.  In any event that’s in Karmic too I believe.

Fedora implements SELinux.  Dan Walsh has a much better explanation of this than I can give, available as a PDF.  Ubuntu uses AppArmor, although as Jef Spaleta pointed out from OpenWeek (it’s the third comment), this might be replaced by SELinux.  From a user’s point of view, this is more or less transparent.  There are two tools provided, one to configure profiles and one to troubleshoot.  Both work well, though I can’t see the configure tool being ventured into by most users.

Hardware recognition was mostly flawless, in much the same vein as Ubuntu.  The only device that it had issues with was a Freecom DVB-T USB card.  Fedora refused the firmware, no matter that it works in Ubuntu and Arch, it just keeps asking for it – even though it’s there.  Of particular note is that when I installed it on an Acer Aspire One it is the only major distribution I’ve tried it on to work out of the box without tweaking, in fact the only thing I noticed was the WiFi lights are missing but that’s fixed in recent kernels.  With easy encryption, this makes Fedora a potential winner in the net book market.

I’m impressed by Fedora.  It’s familiar and friendly, with a well defined and complete appearance.  Delta RPMs are a great idea – especially as we consider that not everyone has a fast internet connection (Sony wants to take this on board, as I wait here for another massive system update on PS3).  Encryption is very welcome as is SELinux.  On the downside, the installation licensing limits the distributed applications and yum is still comparitively slow.

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Huawei E1550

Update: You no longer need to install udev-extras in Ubuntu 10.04.

I picked up a Huawei E1550 pre-pay mobile broadband dongle, £39.99 with 3 Mobile including 3Gb usage (note it’s not the device they’re picturing).

I’m on a course next month so that’ll do fine, I have no reception at home and am not away enough to warrant a contract.

It appears to identify itself as USB storage, to install drivers on Windows then flip-flops to a modem.  Nice idea, terrible implementation, even in Windows where it installs drivers every time you use a different USB port (it’s often wise to try such devices in Windows – so you don’t chase your tail with a faulty device).  Pretty sure it’s the autorun program that’s flipping the device.

Anyway for 8.10 you need udev-extras, you don’t need this for 10.04 onwards:
sudo apt-get install udev-extras

Add a udev rule:
gksu gedit /etc/udev/rules.d/15-huawei-e1550.rules

What we’re doing is telling udev that when this device is plugged in to switch its mode.  Paste this and save:
SUBSYSTEM=="usb",
SYSFS{idProduct}=="1446",
SYSFS{idVendor}=="12d1",
RUN+="/lib/udev/modem-modeswitch --vendor 0x12d1 --product 0x1446 --type option-zerocd"

On next insertion, Network Manager’s mobile broadband configuration assistant will run – select “3 (handsets)”.

Also, the booklet that came with mine was fairly unhelpful but flashing green lights are powered, flashing blue show available networks and solid blue is connected to a network.

The differences with both Fedora and Arch are on my wiki pages.

Please don’t ask if it works in Linpus Linux Lite because I haven’t had that installed in ages.  I suspect the Fedora guide will point the way but I know Acer have their own mobile broadband software for Huawei devices.  Whether that extends to this model I couldn’t say.

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http://wiki.lynxworks.eu/aspireone/arch

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Its all up and running and other than two quirks, the guide on Arch Wiki is spot on.

As I said, I came across two quirks – the install image used kernel 2.6.26, which detects the r8196 module for the network but for some reason will not answer a dhcp request after reboot (only after reboot) – so replace it with 2.26.27 before reboot. You’ll need to anyway because the Atheros wireless chipset in the Aspire One is supported OOB on the more recent kernel.

The second is well documented, that ext2 partitions on SD are corrupted on suspend. I opted for an XFS partition though and have not had any issues.

The only things I haven’t got working are suspend to RAM and the WiFi light (although the switch works). Neither of these is a show-stopper because I’ve got boot time down to under 18 seconds which is only a few seconds more than resume from RAM.

I’d also advise binning dhcpd and using wicd – which integrates well with XFCE and being a daemon means WiFi is up before you’ve got a desktop.

Really impressed with Arch, a distro I haven’t used before. It’s from the minimalist camp and allows a tailored installation with little or no cruft. Its documentation is fantastic (I have seen a few ideas that I intend to implement in Ubuntu!).

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Edit: For anyone who came here to find out how to enable the “advanced menu” or XFCE menu on right click – Open your documents, click “File->Terminal” and type “xfce-setting-show” or just “xfce-se” then hit tab. Click “Desktop->Behaviour” and then tick “Show desktop menu on right click”.

I have a workaround but haven’t worked out why yet. Open a terminal (from a Thunar window if you haven’t enable the right click on the desktop). Now if you look in .config/xfce4/panel there is your standard xml file to layout the panel. If you alter this, on relaunching the panel it overwrites it with the default.

The odd thing is that the un-patched panel is still there, and works as normal (look in /usr/bin – there are two panels, one renamed xfce4-panel.old). Well for some reason that I haven’t fathomed, if you kill the running panel then alter the config then run xfce4-panel.old then restart it the xml config is not overwritten.

Here’s a screenshot:

Weird

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