Netbook Experience

Techplay-Experience.com have recently written an article on a web based golf game called WGT, and given the lack of good golf games (see this article on how to run Links golf on the Acer Aspire One) and with WGT being free to play I thought I would give it a go on my humble Acer Aspire One.

One the AA1 running Mint Linux Fluxbox and on the Opera Internet Browser the game runs reasonably well, occasionally after you hit a shot there is a short pause whilst the game works out where the ball will land, but this won’t spoil your enjoyment of the game to much.

The game graphics are fantastic with computer generated players super imposed over real photographs of the courses.

If you are looking for a good golf game for your Acer Aspire One then check out this article over at Techplay Experience.

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One of the elements missing as standard in the Fluxbox version of Mint Linux is the ability to capture a screen shot. This is an important function for some users including yours truly.

There is a utility available in the package manager called screenshooter which will capture the current screen.

The install Screenshooter:

1) Open the Synaptic package manager from the Program Menu ( accessed by right clicking on the desktop). Enter your Admin password if required.

2) Type screenshooter in the quick search box

3) Click in the box next to the 2nd screenshooter box and choose mark for installation.

4) Click on Apply and Screen Shooter will now install and will be available in the  Accessories section of the program menu called Screenshot.

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Google Chrome is a popular web browser based on the open source Chromium browser.

It’s possible to install Chromium on the Acer Aspire One on several OS’s

To install Chromium on the Acer Aspire One running Linpus read this post

To install Chromium on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux follow this procedure:

1) Open a Terminal Window and type: sudo apt-get install gedit

Input your admin password if required, this will install the gedit text editor

2) In the Terminal Window type sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list    and again enter your admin password if required, this will open redit.

3) Enter the following 2 lines at the bottom of the document

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

Save the file.

4) In the terminal window copy and paste the following line: sudo apt-key adv –recv-keys –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com 0xfbef0d696de1c72ba5a835fe5a9bf3bb4e5e17b5

5) In the terminal window type sudo apt-get update

6) In the terminal window type sudo apt-get install chromium-browser

Chromium will now install, and should be available in the Internet program section.

or you can run the application by typing chromium-browser in a terminal window.

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If you are looking for a cheap Netbook, then Acer are selling refurbished Linux Acer Aspire One’s for the low price of £122.97 for the 8GB SSD version or £129.97 for the 16GB SSD version.

These are bargin prices and ideal if you are looking for a netbook, and don’t mind a scratch on the case.

To see Acer’s offers check out this page.

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In this post I mentioned how well the fluxbox version of Mint Linux runs on the Acer Aspire One, and I strongly recommend that users of the Acer Aspire One switch to this OS if they are struggling or are frustrated with the default Linpus Operating system.

Here’s the procedure for installing Mint Linux with the Fluxbox desktop on the Acer Aspire One.

On a Windows PC with a USB .

1) Download the ISO file for Mint Linux Fluxbox by clicking here.

2) Download  Linux Live USB Creator by clicking here and then run the application.

3) Select your USB Pen Drive in Step 1

4) Click on the ISO option is Step 2 and point the application to the ISO file you downloaded. You may get a warning that the program doesn’t recognise the distribution, and it’s going to use the settings for Mint 8 Helena – this is fine

5) Set the Persistence to 0MB

6) Tick the box that allows the application to format your USB Drive – you will loose everything on your Drive.

7) Click on the Lightning icon to start the installation

When the install has completed:

1) Reboot your AA1 with the USB stick will plugged in.

2) Press F12 when the Acer Flash screen appears to choose the boot device

3) Select your  USB Drive.

4) A Mint Linux boot menu will appear – select install and Mint Linux Fluxbox will now install on your Acer Aspire One.

One of the first things you will notice is that there is no Start or Menu button in the bottom left hand corner of the screen. To access your applications click the right mouse button on the desktop

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As standard the Acer Aspire One comes with 512 meg RAM which as standard is fine for most Netbook Activities, however some of you may require a bit more memory, especially if you want to multitask applications under windows XP.

Upgrading the RAM on the Acer Aspire One is possible but tricky, the video below explains how to do it, I would advise that you only do the upgrade if you are completly comfortable taking laptops apart.

This is a process that I’ve had no need to do myself, but it may help a number of you.

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In this previous post I described how to install Mobile Internet on the Acer Aspire One running Linpus

This article explains how to install a Mobile Internet 3g Dongle on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux Fluxbox,

The process is simple and is tested on the 3g dongle released by 3UK.

To install the dongle on Fluxbox:

1. Right click on the network icon in the bottom right hand corner of the Screen
2. Click on Edit Connections
3. Click on  Mobile Broadband
4. Click on Add
5. This will launch a Wizard
6. Click on Forward
7. Choose your country and click on Forward
8. Choose your provider and click on Forward
9. Choose the right plan and click on Forward
10. Click on apply

Restart your Acer Aspire One with your dongle in the USB port, and after you have logged on, left click on the network icon,  and your broadband connection will be available in the list of available connections.

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For those of you who have installed Skype on the Acer Aspire one running the Fluxbox version of Mint Linux you may be experiencing some difficulties with the audio quality through the Internal mic.

To resolve this issue:

1) Open the Mint Menu and load Terminal

2) Type cd / and press return

3) Type cd etc and press return

4) type sudo rm asound.conf and press return

5) Enter your admin password if prompted

6) Reboot your computer

Your audio quality in Skype will now be greatly improved.

If you are having problems with Skype when running Mint Linux 8 Helena – check out this post

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Recently the source code for the original Simcity has been donated by EA to the One Laptop One Child project under GNU License.

The results are Micropolis and it’s available to play on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux through the package manager.

To install Micropolis on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux:

1) Activate the Mint Menu

2) Load the Synaptic Package Manager

3) Enter your Admin Password

4) Enter micropolis into the Quick search box

5) Click into the box next to Micropolis and mark for installation.

6) Click on install

Micropolis will now install and be available in the Games Menu.

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Once again there’s a high profile news story where a young child has lost their life after meeting their killer on a social networking site.

It’s the responsibility of every parent to make sure that their children are using the Internet in a safe way, otherwise you won’t know what they are doing or who they are talking to.

Fortunately there are products on the market that can help you, there are plenty of  Internet Safety Software out there which can help.

Software like Spector Pro which takes frequent screenshots of the Internet activity as well as recording chat sessions, Social networking activity emails and web searches, really help you to monitor and look after your loved ones.

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In this article I described how to install Mint Linux8 (Helena) on the Acer Aspire One.

As standard Mint Linux comes supplied with the Gnome Desktop which provides a stylish, easy to use and configurable user Interface, and one which puts the Windows XP experience to shame.

However on the humble Acer Aspire One sometimes Mint Linux 8 is a bit laggy, although using the Opera Browser rather the Firefox assists the web browsing experience.

There are other versions of Mint Linux available which use different desktop environments and one of them is the Fluxbox desktop.

Fluxbox is a lite desktop environment, which means that it’s less complex then heavier desktops and may be missing some of the more advanced functionality, eg you cant grab screen shots with a button press, but it makes up for it with speed, and the Fluxbox version of Mint Linux flies, it’s even quicker to use then Linpus.
It is a little less stylish to use then Mint with Gnome, eg there isn’t a menu button to access applications, the program menu is access through a right click on desktop, but both versions of mint run the same applications.

The table below shows a comparison of the usability and functionality of the 3 types of Linux I’ve tested recently with my scoring:

If you are looking with a really quick operating system for your Netbook and are looking for more flexibility then the original linpus then checkout the Fluxbox version of Mint Linux

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In this post I described how to play FreeCiv in a Web Browser

In this post I described how to install FreeCiv on the Linpus version of the Acer Aspire One, and also how unfortunately it stopped working when a software repository was taken off line.

FreeCiv is an open source version of the PC classic game Civilization, and previously I’ve had difficulty getting it to work on the Acer Aspire One but on Mint Linux it works really well.

To install FreeCiv on the Acer Aspire One running Mint Linux.

1) Click on the Mint Menu Bar

2) Click on Package Menu

3) Enter your admin password

4)Search fro FreeCiv

5) Click on the box next to freeciv-client-gtk and click on mark for installation

6) Click on Apply

7) Freeciv will now install and will be available in the Games section of the Mint Menu.

Before Playing FreeCiv right click on the program bar at the bottom of the screen.

9) Click on Properties

10) Enable Auto Hide. This will slide the program bar off the screen when it’s not needed and will give you the extra space needed to play FreeCiv.

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Most Internet users use some form of instant messaging (eg MSN messenger) to talk to their friends and colleagues and Netbooks cope with Instant Messaging applications very well.

Both Linpus and Mint Linux come with good instant messaging clients:

• On Linpus the Messenger application can be accessed through the Connect Section, and provides access to MSN Messenger
• On Mint Linux a great instant messaging application called Pidgin can be found in the Internet section of the Mint Menu Bar.

Pidgin supports many different messenger systems including MSN, Google, Facebook and many more.

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