EEE PC - Intrepid Ibex - resource round-up

So, my confession is that I did not upgrade my eee pc 700 8G just as soon as it was released. I did try out a fresh release of Ubuntu-eee which has the remix interface included and all the drivers "out of the box". I was a bit put off by the interface (not horrible, just not for me) and waiting until I found concise guides for upgrading to 8.10 with as little issue as possible.

I found two links which seemed to sum up everything I needed to do. The first is a howto provided by the ever-excellent Tombunutu blog. This guide is more or less the best method for upgrading to a standard 8.10 install and then changing the kernel to that provided by Array.org which has all the correct modules pre-compiled. Array also follows new kernel releases closely with the correct modifications made so that you don't need to recompile drivers each time you upgrade the systems kernel.

I have to confess that after the straight 8.10 install and updating to the Array kernel I made one fix, listed at Ubuntugeek in an article about Atheros wifi. I followed method 2 and only needed to add ath_pci to the blacklist.

In summary my upgrade looked very much like:

1.) Install 8.10 from usb.
2.) Method 2 of Ubuntugeek for working wireless.
3.) Change to the eee modified kernel from Array.

I know it's not a simple check-box selection + reboot, but I have to say that it's much easier than the process that needed to be done for 8.04. I'm thinking to try the new 9.04 Jaunty as frequently as I can to see if it delivers much of the "out of the box" functionality promised in 8.10.

Best of luck with your EEE upgrade, feel free to post your resources used in the comments. Please also share your success and problems (fail!).

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CafeNinja

An easy blog app! w00t

I have found that one of the most distracting things from posting on this blog is that it isn't as easy to access like twitter or jaiku. I have just discovered a great application for linux that should make posting here as easy as the others.

By ease of access I should say that recently thanks to Dan of Linux Outlaws I've started using Gwibber which works like pidgin for microblogging and now I can reach Jaiku or Twitter just as easy as sending an instant message to my friends from a single application.

In the past I have tried to use flock to post with since it has a great tool for writing blog posts, but I find it too much application to launch and use for spontaneous use.

Enter Gnome-blog a.k.a. gnome-blog-poster. Easy to use, pretty powerful application and it is lightweight and most important it's easy to get to with a simple shortcut on the top panel of my gnome desktop even on my eeepc.

I highly recommend it to anyone trying to upkeep a blog, check out the site to see if your blogging site/software is supported.

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CafeNinja