cheap and good
I recently (maybe six months ago) bought a Dell Mini 10. Aside from the mousepad, which sucks because it does not have separate right and left click buttons, this thing rocks for the money ($230 from Dell outlet…they do a nice job with refurbs and scratch/dents).
But as with every device I own, sooner or later I get around to putting some kind of linux on it, usually Ubuntu. So it’s no different here. Here in a nutshell is how I got it working.
First, Ubuntu versions. As of this writing (early June, 2010) the graphic support for 10.04 is experimental. I could not get it working. You might be able to. If you want to try, after you do everything you’re told here, make sure you update your /etc/X11/xorg.conf as shown below then reboot. I did not get to this step before I bailed. Otherwise, if you want an easier time of it, roll with Karmic 9.10 ( i386) as I do here.
First, do your install as usual. I’m assuming you can figure all the partitioning stuff out. I actually had a hard time at first, the installer disk did not recognize my keyboard, but after the install, all was fine. Sound worked, but not wifi. First step, fix wifi. Now, please check first under “System->Administration->Hardware Drivers” because you might see a Broadcom driver. My unit had the Broadcom Corporation BCM4312 802.11b/g. Try this if you want, I did not, not because I am a free software zealot, but because I already had this workaround (1):
sudo apt-get install bcmwl-kernel-source
Reboot, should be working, at least it did for me, without further hassle. After doing it I could see the wireless access points listed when I clicked the networking icon.
Next, graphics. A little tougher.
Enter this at the command line(2):
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gma500/ppa && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libdrm-poulsbo1 poulsbo-config poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d psb-firmware psb-kernel-headers psb-modules xpsb-glx
After you do this, and follow the directions given for 9.10, it will tell you to reboot. Do this. If you end up like me, nothing happened. No difference in graphic performance. Going to System->Preferences->Display it showed an unrecognized monitor and was still at 800×600. Bummer. It also mentions if this does not work you can enter something along the lines of “sudo dpkg-reconfigure psb-kernel-source” which of course told me “psb-kernel-source not installed” or some such thing.
So onward and forward, and google-help-me, I came up with this (3):
Install the following jaunty repositories in your Software Sources:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
then:
sudo apt-get update
apt-get install dkms fakeroot
sudo apt-get install libdrm-poulsbo1
sudo apt-get install poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d psb-firmware
sudo apt-get install psb-kernel-source psb-kernel-headers psb-modules
You will get messages saying some of these had already been installed by the previous command. But not all of them! I’m not sure why, since this series of commands very nearly matches the ones given earlier. Not a big deal. I’m not trying to make this perfect, I’m just conveying what I did, exactly, and it worked. But wait! You’re not done yet. Before you reboot, back up your xorg.conf file and edit it:
sudo cp /etc/X11/xorg.conf /etc/X11/xorg.conf.orig
and add/replace text in the original xorg.conf file as follows:
Section "Device"
Identifier "GMA500"
Option "AccelMethod" "EXA"
# Option "DRI" "off"
Option "MigrationHeuristic" "greedy"
Option "IgnoreACPI" "yes"
Driver "psb"
EndSection
Section "DRI"
Mode 0666
EndSection
That is exactly and entirely the contents of my xorg.conf file. I rebooted, and voila! 1366×768 graphics and much, much smoother flash video. Hopefully you get the same results! As a little bonus, here is my “netbook” version of my all-in-one command to get your netbook loaded with goodies without overwhelming it. Edit to taste, for example if you don’t want the chromium browser, dump all of that (but it’s kickass!):
sudo apt-get install ne ssh sshfs smbfs filezilla php5-cli php-net-socket php5-imap paman paprefs pavucontrol ubuntu-restricted-extras jedit exuberant-ctags gnome-schedule tangerine-icon-theme human-theme nautilus-open-terminal nautilus-script-manager easystroke grsync gnome-alsamixer && sudo add-apt-repository ppa:chromium-daily/ppa && sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install chromium chromium-browser
(1) http://jetpackweb.com/blog/2009/10/29/ubuntu-9-10-karmic-koala-and-broadcom-bcm4312/
(2) https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupportComponentsVideoCardsPoulsbo#karmic
(3) http://swiss.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1253406
