I recently decided it was again time to upgrade the installation of Ubuntu on my Eee Pc 900 and again I decided to use the simplest and safest method possible. First I purchased a new 16 GB SDHC class 10 memory card. Then I booted up an old laptop with a CD/DVD drive and downloaded the iso image from the official site -- http://www.ubuntu.com/download/desktop. After I burned that image to a CD, I shut down the laptop, flipped it over, and disconnected its hard drive so that I couldn’t possibly screw up the OS. (Usually it is very simple to disconnect a laptop hard drive. In this case I removed two small screws, detached the plastic plate covering the drive, and then gently slid the hard drive out of its socket.)
After inserting the new 16 SD card into the card reader slot, I rebooted the laptop and followed the instructions for installing Ubuntu using the entire disk. I ticked the boxes to install third-party codecs and to upgrade packages. Once Ubuntu finished its time-consuming installation, I shut everything down, and inserted the SDHC card into the slot on the right side of my Eee 900. After pushing the power button, I hit the Escape key as soon as the splash screen lit up. That allowed me to scroll down and boot from the SD card instead of the internal SD drive. Bingo! Ubuntu booted perfectly.
While the standard installation of Ubuntu does work on the Eee 900, the Unity desktop interface eats up too much RAM and slows everything down. I prefer to use fluxbox. Do this by opening a terminal window and typing in--
sudo apt-get install fluxbox
Even after you install fluxbox, you can run Ubuntu with the Unity desktop if you choose to do so simply by exiting the fluxbox window manager and logging back in using Unity. Fluxbox, however, allows videos to play with no lagging or stuttering--even in full screen mode. All of the standard software packages in Ubuntu seem to work well in fluxbox--except for the Nautilus file manager and the Gnome Screenshot Utility! If you use them, you may get shifted back into a partial--and very vexing--Unity desktop that sometimes forces a reboot. I handle file management with pcmanfm and midnight commander (mc). Install them with--
sudo apt-get install pcmanfm
sudo apt-get install mc
In /.fluxbox/startup I added these lines:
gnome-settings-daemon &
nm-applet &
exec fluxbox
Gnome-settings-daemon allows suspend and resume to work correctly. Nm-applet puts a network manager applet into the taskbar.
Various key combinations are extremely helpful in using fluxbox. To find out the way these keys are configured by default, have a look at the file ./fluxbox/keys. In ./fluxbox/keys scroll to the section following the lines “# open a terminal / Mod1 F1 :Exec x-terminal-emulator” and inserted the following:
# Chrome
Mod1 F2 :Exec google-chrome
# Firefox
Mod1 F3 :Exec firefox
#File Manager
Mod1 F6 :Exec pcmanfm
Mod1 stands for the Alt key. Thus, Alt-F1 opens a terminal window, Alt-F2 starts google Chrome (after it is installed), Alt-F3 starts Firefox, and Alt-F6 starts the file manager. You should note that Alt-F4 closes a window, Alt-F5 kills a window, Alt-F7 and F8 are unassigned, while Alt-F9 minimixes a window, Alt-F10 maximizes a window, and Alt-F11 makes a window full screen. Be sure to try out the last two since some programs boot into full screen (or larger) by default.
and download the 32 bit .deb version. Once it has finished downloading, double-click on the downloaded file in pcmanfm to install it. If you get an error message "errors were encountered while processing" enter the command--
sudo apt-get install -f
Select “tar.gz for other Linux” and download it.
Put it in its own directory and extract it by double-clicking on the file name with pcmanfm (your file manager). It will create usr and libflashplayer.so
Now open terminal in this folder and type the following commands
sudo cp -r usr/* /usr
sudo cp libflashplayer.so /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins
Finally, to enable Amazon Prime Videos to play open a terminal and type--
sudo apt-get install libhal1 hal
This is the relevant material:
1) Decide where to move the Chrome cache location to. I’ve picked the following location: /tmp/chrome.
This directory, /tmp/chrome will need to be created on boot and properly setup.
On Ubuntu 11.04 and probably older versions, this can be simply done in the /etc/rc.local file as follows:
[In a terminal window type] sudo gedit /etc/rc.local
Add the following lines:
mkdir /tmp/chrome
mount -t tmpfs -o size=1024M,mode=0744 tmpfs /tmp/chrome/
chmod 777 /tmp/chrome/ -R
. . . [C]reate a symlink between the default google cache directory and the new temporary cache directory in RAM. . .
[In a terminal window type each of the following line and then hit ]
rm -rf ~/.cache/google-chrome
ln -s /tmp/chrome/ ~/.cache/google-chrome
Removing the cache in Firefox is even simpler. Start Firefox (Alt-F3) and go to Edit-Preferences-Advanced-Network. Tick the box to override automatic cache management and then set the cache to 0 Mb of space. That’s it.
In addition, I downloaded xnview for linux XnViewMP-linux.tgz at --
and installed it in its own directory under Documents by opening a terminal window in the directory where I stored/moved the downloaded file and then typing--
tar -xvpzf XnViewMP-linux.tgz
Run Xnview by using pcmanfm to navigate to the directory in which you extracted the files and then double-click on the "xnview.sh" file. Xnview is an excellent program for organizing and editing photos, but it also allows one to take and save screenshots easily.
I like to have Synaptic packet management available. So, in a terminal window I typed--
sudo apt-get install synaptic
If you happen to use a Garmin to keep track of running or cycling or hiking, you will want to open and terminal window and type--
sudo apt-get install garmin-forerunner-tools
sudo apt-get install pytrainer
You will also want Andrea Diesner’s plugin for Firefox so that you can make full use of websites like Strava.com and Connect.garmin.com. Here is his website--
I use Audacious for playing mp3 files and Mplayer for various video formats. Install them with--
sudo apt-get install audacious
sudo apt-get install mplayer
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/jupiter
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install jupiter
sudo apt-get install jupiter-support-eee
This latest version of Ubuntu seems to work even better than the previous one. The cpu runs cooler, the fan runs less frequently, the battery may last longer. All in all an Eee Pc 900 running Google Chrome (with Firefox as needed) is a fine little machine for surfing the web and general word processing.
