9.10 Karmic on Eee PC 901 issues

[M1ke]

Hi everyone. I've been lurking here for a couple of weeks and already I've learned lots, but I'm still an absolute newcomer to Linux and Ubuntu so please bare with me if the answers to my queries seem shockingly obvious! It's quite humbling as an experienced Windows user feeling like you can't do much without following it up with a google search on alien error messages.

I've been trying to run Ubuntu on an Eee PC 901 - the model with a 4GB and 8GB SSD - and three installations later (long story) I think I'm nearly set up as I'd like to be. The only change I've made to the hardware is the installation of 2GB RAM instead of the 1GB it shipped with.

I'm looking for a tray utility that I can use to control my wifi, webcam etc but I'm having some trouble installing eee-control. It worked fine on one of my ill-fated earlier installations, but now the installation attempt fails and I receive the following:

Unpacking eee-control (from eee-control_0.9.4_all~karmic_unofficial.deb) ...        
dpkg: error processing eee-control_0.9.4_all~karmic_unofficial.deb (--install):     
 error creating directory `data/etc': No such file or directory                     
dpkg-deb: subprocess paste killed by signal (Broken pipe)                           
Errors were encountered while processing:                                           
 eee-control_0.9.4_all~karmic_unofficial.deb

I'm guessing the crucial line is the error in creating "data/etc", but if the absense of this folder is what's holding things up, where do I create it? Somewhere in /? In /home?

My other query is to do with booting the system. I keep reading reports of 20 - 30 second boot times on Ubuntu running on anything from netbooks to desktops and that's what I'm used to with XP, but on my Eee 901 it takes a full 2 or 3 minutes with lots of blank screens (sometimes with the mouse pointer doing the "working" thing, sometimes a cursor in the top left, sometimes nothing, but never consistently one of the three!) before I see the login screen. Google searches don't seem to be getting me very far with this one. Is there something I'm missing?

Other than the long boot time and an inability to turn off my wifi card I'm quite enjoying Ubuntu and its helpful community.

[ikt]

My other query is to do with booting the system. I keep reading reports of 20 - 30 second boot times on Ubuntu running on anything from netbooks to desktops and that's what I'm used to with XP, but on my Eee 901 it takes a full 2 or 3 minutes with lots of blank screens (sometimes with the mouse pointer doing the "working" thing, sometimes a cursor in the top left, sometimes nothing, but never consistently one of the three!) before I see the login screen.

I'm not sure which model you have of the Eeepc but if it's just a regular model with SSD, it's not going to be fast, I have an acer aspire one that also has an SSD drive however it was fairly new tech when it went in, and is as slow as a regular hard drive, the super fast 10-20 second boots are usually with the new brand of SSD drives out that are amazingly fast, example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqefSHEx7kE

[M1ke]

I'm not sure I follow you. My understanding of the 901 model is that the 4GB is quite fast and that the larger, 8GB SSD is a little more sluggish. In any case as I had the 20 - 30 second boot times with Windows XP running on the 4GB SSD, shouldn't the performance be similar booting Ubuntu? The system doesn't appear to be doing very much during the long blank-screen pauses.

[Temposs]

Did you install the Ubuntu Netbook Remix?

[M1ke]

No, I'm running the standard 9.10 Karmic Koala. I've read that NBR is optimised for these machines but would prefer the full desktop environment at the moment rather than the (admittedly gorgeous-looking) NBR interface.

[ikt]

The system doesn't appear to be doing very much during the long blank-screen pauses.

http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=78701

Looks like there's an issue.

[Temposs]

You should install the Netbook Remix. You can change to the normal desktop on there. There's a special tool to do that made just for Netbook Remix(although there was some issue with it in 9.10 and they didn't release it with the OS, so you'll have to download the current version yourself, probably).

Here is the page for the desktop-switcher program: https://launchpad.net/desktop-switcher

[antony.s]

Writing this from an Eee PC (1000HG) with netbook remix, I highly recommend it, I have had no issues so far (2 months!)

[M1ke]

You should install the Netbook Remix. You can change to the normal desktop on there. There's a special tool to do that made just for Netbook Remix(although there was some issue with it in 9.10 and they didn't release it with the OS, so you'll have to download the current version yourself, probably).

Here is the page for the desktop-switcher program: https://launchpad.net/desktop-switcher

Hmm, might have to do a fresh install then, perhaps. Under my current setup I have /home on the larger of the two SSD's. Is NBR different enough to regular Ubuntu that it won't be a simple case of reinstalling the OS and having my settings etc in /home still intact? Because that was the main reason I moved /home to a different drive - cutting down the customisation time following fresh OS installations.

[Temposs]

NBR is not much different. It's still Ubuntu with GNOME. You should be able to keep your home directory. It will change the necessary settings during installation and leave the rest in tact. But yes, a fresh install would be in order.