Text 13473, 120 rader
Skriven 2009-11-21 20:24:13 av Stephen Haffly (1:396/45.27)
  Kommentar till text 13468 av Russell Tiedt (5:7105/1)
Ärende: EEEPC
=============
Hello Russell,

On (21 Nov 09) Russell Tiedt wrote to Stephen Haffly...

 RT> Well, so far eeebuntu standard is working well, if slow on a SD Card,
 RT> if you put Fedora on there, then maybe I should give Slackware 13 a go
 RT> ...

I had not tried eeebuntu.  I have been rather partial to Fedora, but one
of the reasons I preferred Fedora is starting to disappear.  Fedora now
us much like Ubuntu in that it is getting harder to get to the root
account.  More and more is being done by using the user account and
sudo.  One can still access root with su - , but then even a basic
function such as running yumex won't work.  It doesn't allow it.  I have
to execute the command as a user and then it prompts me for the root
password.  I think it a bit silly to do things that way, but I
understand the rationale for it.  They are trying to make things easier
for unexperienced users.  I am in favor of doing so, but not by taking
away all options from experienced administrators and/or users.

 SH> Well, I won't say that Fedora is small.  There are options to install
 SH> a stripped-down kernel, but I have not done that.  The best option I
 SH> read and used was to place /boot and / on the 4 Gb fast SSD and then
 SH> swap, /home and /usr/share on the slower 16 Gb SSD.  That way, the
 SH> bulk of the package downloads that Fedora uses for updates do not fill
 SH> up the / partition.  In addition, I did encrypt /home and swap as I
 SH> wanted the added security that encryption provides for a travel
 SH> machine.  Even with encryption, it does not seem to slow it down that
 SH> I can tell.

 RT> Been thinking about that as well, putting part on the SSD disk and
 RT> home, var and usr on the sd card. Also nice knowing that encryption is
 RT> a usable option ...

I decided that before things went too much farther that with Fedora 12
just being released, I would go ahead and update my EeePC and desktop
systems to it.  This time, I kept the same partitioning scheme, but
every partition except /boot is encrypted.  This is my layout as
reported by Palimpsest Disk Utility:

4.0 GB Hard Disk (SSD):  210 MB Filesystem, Linux Ext3 (/boot); 3.8 GB
Encrypted (/)
16 GB Hard Disk (SSD):  9.7 GB Encrypted (/home); 4.3 GB Encrypted
(/usr/share); 2.1 GB Encrypted (Swap)

I could probably have allowed less space for /usr/share as it doesn't
seem to need so much.  It is currently at 28% usage, so I probably
could have allotted 2 GB instead of 4 GB for it.  The next time I make a
major change such as upgrading to a future version of Fedora, I will
probably cut it back then or further subdivide it and move another item
such as /var/cache over.

Again, I have not noticed any apparent slowdowns for the encryption.  It
seems to perform quite well.


 RT> eeebuntu has an option for CPU scaling - kicks in when operating from
 RT> the battery, and goes to full speed ahead when the power is plugged in
 RT> ...

Do you have any indicator to show what speed the processor is running?
I had read that the Celeron didn't really have the ability to scale.
Given the CPU Frequency Scaling Monitor which is one of the Gnome panel
applets just sits there at 900 MHz whether or not it is plugged in seems
to confirm that.  OTOH, the display will dim when the power cord is
unplugged so it does do some power saving functions adequately.

Also, I found that the eee-control utility did not seem to be fully
functional with Fedora 12.  However, the hot keys seem to work fine for
the major functions such as suspend and wireless, so the need for
eee-control is much less.

 RT> I quite like eeepc, and if I keep on finding it a pleasure, I am going
 RT> to go for an extended battery, as I get about 3 hours on the standard
 RT> battery ...

I did get an extended 1024 mAH battery.  The problem is that the battery
tables in the BIOS must be used for the power management.  The battery
icon does not seem to track capacity very well.  It reports current
percentage as 70%, which is well, but says that the battery only has a
capacity of 1.9% (Poor) with a current charge of 0.6 Wh, Last full
charge:  0.8 Wh but Design charge: 43.7 Wh.  Regardless, I can get quite
a bit of use out of this battery before I have to find a plug.  :)

 RT> Must still get a 16gig. SD Card for it, that will give me enough room
 RT> to store data, i.e. things like a FidoNet msgbase on the SD Card, I am
 RT> not comfortable with USB sticks being plugged in, for long periods of
 RT> time, the thought behind this being, that it is all too easy to break
 RT> the plastic "bit" in the middle of the USB plug, and then it is no
 RT> longer usable ...

I managed to do that on one system.  Later, I forgot about it and tried
to plug a device into that port and the computer shut down and wouldn't
reboot.  I found that one of the contact "fingers" had bent and was
touching the socket in a dead short.  A quick straightening and a cover
to prevent using that socket was in order.  It didn't cause any damage,
thankfully, but it did put a scare into me.

 RT> Mine is a EeePc 700 with a 2Gig SSD and 512M RAM ... , also with a
 RT> Celeron M processor ...

You might be able to bump up the RAM without too much difficulty.  I
raised my 900 to 2 Gb and then a friend with a 700 used my extra 1 Gb
chip to bump his up to 1 Gb.

 RT> Have saved this post as it has a number of points to ponder ...

As has yours.  My EeePC has been quite valuable since I became a student
again.  It is a lot easier to carry than my older Compaq Presario.


Regards,

Stephen
Team OS/2, Team PPoint/IREX

... Proverbs 3:13 | Happy is the man that findeth wisdom,...

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