Chris weBlog

I recently picked up an NC10 Netbook.  It’s a sort of 30th B-day present to myself.  I’ve wanted a small laptop to tote around on trips or to a relative’s house to help them setup/debug their home networks.  I’d like to have the ease of taking the device to business meetings and pitches without having to worry about lugging around a big briefcase.  Simple is better.

The one thing I like so far about the NC10 (besides its size) is its keyboard when compared to the diminutive EEEPC.  My fat fingers really don’t have a problem typing away on it and the large right-shift key is a plus (I’m look at you Lenovo!).

One thing that has annoyed me is the NC10’s wireless card.  For whatever reason my first connection to my network failed to reconnect… EVER.  I updated the driver for the wireless card using a driver update from samsung.com.  Rebooted the netbook, reconfigured the connection and haven’t had a problem since (knock on wood).  I also installed VLC Player on it to test out the media capabilities of the NC10.  I was not disappointed.  I played a few Divx files without any problems.  Christine even lammented not having the NC10 for our recent trip to Europe, “It would have been nice to watch something in English for a change.”

As many of my friends already know, I really don’t like Windows.  I’ve had a Mandriva desktop running for 4 years now without a single hiccup or problem.  I like it, it works, its free.

So my ultimate goal with the NC10 is to get Linux working on it.  First off, I’ll admit right now that running Linux perfectly on a laptop isn’t the easiest thing to achieve.  Often this is a result of hardware compatibility issues.  So I was prepared for the fact that not everything would work out of the box with Linux.

With my family coming to town for Christmas, I’ve made the decision not to completely wipe the NC10’s harddrive.  I’ve decided to dual boot the PC with XP and Ubuntu.  XP for them, Ubuntu for me.  I found a REALLY neat app called Wubi that downloads and installs Ubuntu as a file within a Windows partition and still allows you to dual boot your system.

Using Wubi it was pretty painless to install Ubuntu.  You download the exe, run it, pick your “partition” size, your flavor of Ubuntu, add your first user, and off you go!  Wubi downloads all the install package (~700mb) and asks you to reboot your PC.  After rebooting, you simply select “Ubuntu” from the boot menu.  The installation continues by completing the OS install without having to do anything else.  Before you know it you’re staring at the login screen.  I’d say it took me ~45 minutes from downloading Wubi (wired connection) to booting to the Ubuntu login screen.  Not bad at all.

Entering the user name and password you gave Wubi at the start of the install, Ubuntu logs you in and displays your netbook desktop.

The wireless drivers Ubuntu selected by default for the NC10 are not correct.  So I visited this blog, followed the instructions to compile the correct drivers, and it worked.  No sweat. Easy cheesey!

I’ve added Foxmarks to the default install of Firefox which automatically sync’d my bookmarks for me.  (I LOVE Foxmarks!)

I’m on the Internets and running now!

Still left to do:
1. Abate the annoying track pad “wave” issue following some directions HERE.
2. Install Thunderbird.
3. Figure out how to connect it to my Samba server on my desktop.
4. Test out the Ubuntu media capabilities.

Things I still want to mess around with:
1. Ubuntu Netbook Remix