[version April 04, 2009]
[Please note that this information is out of date with the release of Ubuntu Jaunty Jackalope. In fact, I have not updated these writeups since returning to school this semester to finish up my CS degree. I'm leaving the information up because many people continue to make use of it. But beware, I can no longer promise the information is bullet-proof. And last, if you're just passing through, #0, #3, #5, #8, #9 are the most original content here. The rest is widely available and you should look elsewhere for more recent advice if what I've written fails.]
This blog is about writeups, not news and updates. For that reason this page will always be the front page and will be kept up to date with a beginning-to-end writeup of how to set up the NC10 for Ubuntu 8.10 and Fedora 10.
0) Windows refund: my experiences
1) Post-installation hardware status: read my first post
2) Update Ubuntu:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
4) Learn how to get maximum screen brightness even on battery
5) Customize GNOME and Firefox to maximize screen space
7) If you already got wireless to work by installing the ath5k madwifi drivers before reading this blog, you can improve wireless performance
8) FYI: Don’t turn on Desktop Effects, it prevents sleep/hibernate from working (Fedora only).
9) Extend your desktop onto an external display
10) Fix headphone port so it turns off speakers when in use: unsolved
WARNING do not attempt to install the latest ALSA drivers on kernel 2.6.27-9 (2.6.27-9, type uname -r to check your version). Audio will stop working and cannot be easily recovered. I believe this problem only affects Ubuntu, as I have successfully solved the headphone issue on Fedora 10 by updating ALSA to 1.0.18a while using the latest kernel. I have already attempted to boot into -7 (I never delete old kernels) and install the drivers there, but for some reason I cannot understand it didn’t take. At this point I’m waiting for the -11 kernel which the Ubuntu Community Documentation claims will solve these problems. If headphones are a must for you, I’d suggest the -7 route, but since it did not work for me the last time I tried it, I won’t write it up here.
11) Fix internal microphone: unsolved
21 Comments
Bluetooth works fine on Ubuntu Intrepid.
Bluetooth works out of the box in Ubuntu 8.10, at least as far as sending files to a cell phone goes. Most things do, actually!
10) Fix internal microphone: unsolved
11) Line-in (microphone jack) – untested
Works fine with ALSA 1.0.18a
12) External display – untested
Worked out of the box with Fedora 10. Only problem was that the maximum resolution on the external display was 1024×768. Fixed that by adding the following minimal xorg.conf http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/175389/xorg.conf
Internal mic works for me after a bit of fooling around with the various mixer settings.
Open the Gnome volume control applet; select ALSA mixer from the drop down. Now open the preferences and just select all possible tracks. The important one is input source. Once you’ve selected it, an Options tab opens up in the volume control window, where you can select Front mic instead of Mic (which I assume is the Line-in port).
Recording from the built-in mic should now work. You can increase the Front Mic Boost from the Playback (!) tab if it’s not loud enough. Be sure to keep the normal Front Mic volume to zero though, this does not control recording volume, it’s not useful for anything I think.
I’m sure there are various other ways to accomplish this, of course.
This is on Ubuntu 8.10, kernel 2.6.27 and Alsa 1.0.17.
@MORSCH:
YOU DID IT!!!
This advice is exactly correct – you need to select the item “Input source” and then open the OPTIONS tab, just as was described.
THANK YOU!!
With 2.6.27-11 kernel, and Step 6)Enable Wireless as described above, I have the jack-switch for the speakers, good wireless and the mic working. I am one happy camper!
Thank you for all your effort. I got my NC10 yesterday and installed F10. It’s working pretty well so far except for the internal microphone. Going to check this out today.
I regret not living in France. (; It’s the only country I know where you can easily get refunded for buying a bundled Windows license.
Awesome. Thanks very much. Having battled to get wifi working on SLax the day before, this was a godsend. BTW, I was using MintLinux, these instructions work very well.
“Audio will stop working and cannot be easily recovered.”
To recover the original audio drivers of the Ubuntu kernel and get the audio working again..
see https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SoundTroubleshooting#Manual%20Installation
Under “Refreshing/Reinstalling the drivers”:
…you can purge your custom changes, and restore your system to a clean base. This may clear up your problem, and restore you to a working state.
Open a terminal and type
sudo aptitude –purge reinstall linux-sound-base alsa-base alsa-utils linux-image-`uname -r` linux-ubuntu-modules-`uname -r` libasound2
This will purge any custom configurations that you’ve made, and any hand-compiled modules that you’ve built, and restore your sound stack to the “Official” Ubuntu core…
Worked for me to get sound working again, although off course internal speaker will not turn off when a headphone is plugged in.
YOU CAN FIX MOST OF THESE PROBLEMS BY USING OPENSUSE 11.1.
EVERYTHING APART FROM BRIGHTNESS AND SOME HOTKEYS WORKS OUT OF THE BOX.
@ anon (Posted January 22, 2009 at 8:49 am):
yes, very few things to touch with 11.1. But yesterday something new happened.
I tried to dl a torrent with uTorrent (via Wine), and its speed was terrible (< 0.1 K/s). I tried with the default client (Monsoon) and nothing changed. So I booted XP and tried with uTorrent: 50 K/s!!
What’s the matter? Wifi problems here?? Consider that I have just updated the bios as suggested somewhere else.
Regards
___
campamax
NETBOOKS REQUIRE BIOS UPDATES – CHECK THESE OUT 1ST TO MINIMISE THRASHING AROUND – BUT NEEDS EXPERIENCE/CARE:-
NC10 – Thanks to openSUSE after searching the web I updated the NC10’s BIOS to 04CA and installed openSUSE 11.1. Everything works fine.
I changed screen brightness F2 on booting from Auto to User Change.
One user had tried 6 flavours of Linux and only OpenSUSE 11.1 was flawless.
(For Asus 701 – eeePC needs bios update from 401 to 0910 or late for some USB storage devices).
Just to put my hat in the ring, I’m running FC10 out of the box, only change was to use 104 not 105 key keyboard to ensure F11 and F12 worked, and the above mentioned fix in the mixer to get the builtin mic working (good job @morsch). Not flawless but bloody close.
@Bill:
bios was already updated.
I then recompiled the driver and things started going much better: if I download OOo as a test I can get ~400 KB/s, that is a juicy speed for my 8 Mbps DSL! Maybe some optimization of the way uTorrent works can even improve. Up to now I’ve been too lazy to run connection tests and so on…
@Biscuits:
I am very curious to try it out in parallel to my working Suse install. Maybe I’ll post my impressions as soon as I manage to.
Thanks for taking the time to set this little site up, as a linux newb this is just what I was looking for.
Loving my NC10, but so far, taking far too long to get it just the way I want it!
I bought just yesterday a 8 GB SD card to install Fedora on and test in in parallel to my actual XP/Suse dual boot; I successfully installed Fedora onto it specifying to put the boot loader on the SD card, then created an image of the boot sector through BootPart as I have always done for dual booting through ntldr, but I receive a message saying that the disk is not bootable: what did I miss?? This has always worked for me when booting from partitions on the same main hdd.
Any ideas?!?
Thanks a lot
___
campamax
Unfortunately you cannot boot from the sd card. You can boot from a usb stick. There is a small workaround that you can do where you put the /boot drirectory on the HD, but then all of th efilesystem on the SD card. As long as the kernel or intramfs has SD card support compiled in. http://www.osnews.com/story/20743/Eeebuntu_2_0_SD_Card_Installation_on_the_Aspire_One
Thanks John.
Changing topic: I found here (http://www.linuxonmysamsung.com/) lots of updated info and support. I finally switched and went to Mint 6. A little more effort than Suse to start up, but everything works now.
this is all good news. am i correct to say that since ubuntu works fine with the NC10, Debian will also?
I’ve just installed jaunty 9.4 beta
and other then the track pad been a little funky
every thing seems to work
(special keys, boot screen, wifi)
but not tested the mic yet
and dont’ have a mic to plug in
Try Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu 9.04) everything works brilliantly. Awesome!
That’s not true!
Jaunty has better support for sure, but still the worst problem persists: Internal speakers don’t turn off when heatset is plugged in.
Would appreciate any help for this