2.19.2009

Bye bye Xandros....

Two days ago my Eee PC went crazy. First it has showed that there are a lot of updates including an upgrade from firefox 2 to version 3. I said OK, it should be all right. But then it has shown that the upgrade has failed and started to behave in a strange way. Soon I had to realize that the writable part of the root partition is full.
Eee version of Xandros have an interesting partition scheme. The root partition is on the 4 Gb SSD disk and consist of two parts: an approx. 3.4 Gb read only part and a 600 Mb writable part. Any additional programs go to the writeable part, so there is no too much space. Contrary on the read only part there is some 2.5 Gb free space which is not accessible. I think this is a design error. Anyway, I have used the backup function which copies the files from the read only part therefore restoring everything but the user's data to the factory defaults. Otherwise it is not a bad idea, but I hate that I have just a very limited space for additions.
Anyway, I have restored the default program set. And again, I applied the upgrades without installing any additional software. And again! The writeable part become full, so I cannot use the system. That was the last drop, since it is obviously a design problem.
I was looking for a suitable alternative and finally I ended up with Eeebuntu (Netbook remix). I am really not a fan of Ubuntu, I do not like the hype around it, so I had doubts about it, but I gave it a try. Now I have installed everything, and even more. All the features has worked out of box, webcam, wifi, wired ethernet, hybernation etc. I dedicated the 4Gb disk to the system (never again too small space!) and the 16 Gb disk to home. I am a bit worried about the wearing of the SSD disks, so I will look around the right mount options like noatime, and the migration of logs to a tmpfs filesystem. At the moment I am very satisfied with Eeebuntu, I like some of the features I lacked from Xandros. For example I like that the system does not hybernate when it is on the charger and the lid is closed. This way I can listen for internet radios without keeping the stuff open. Since I do it a lot, now the LCD does not get dirty.
I hope I can use now the system even more efficiently, since I like a lot the hardware, just Xandros what made it slow and not suitable for me. And I can install even gramps for my family history research!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

don't write all updates!!!
like bulgarian umm keyboard layaout and dont ewen try to download printer update it will kill properties to open!!!