I very seldom need to read CDs or DVDs with a laptop, and even more rarely to write any, but still it is a nice option to have it at hand.

after a careful search I came to the conclusion (recommended by a few people at eeeuser.com forums), that the LG GSAE50L is the one I am looking for.

apart from the fact that it is a damn sexy piece of device, it also has all the features I might ever need on the road.

- DVD+R/RW, DVD+R DL, DVD-R/RW, DVD-R DL, DVD-RAM, CD-R/RW

- Double Layer DVD+R (8.5GB) and dual layer DVD-R (8.5GB) recording supported

- and… lightscribe…

well… lightscribe seems the most unnecessary feature for a CD/DVD burner, true, but it isn’t it nice to have a fancy picture on your freshly burnt DVD?

the device itself just work fine as expected under ubuntueee (EeePC) if you install the necessary packages for disk burning support.

sudo apt-get install brasero
sudo apt-get install gnomebaker

this will install two CD/DVD writer application, Brasero and GnomeBaker, whichever you prefer.

both of the programs work as expected, choosing between them is really just a matter of preference for the graphical interface.

so back to lighscribe…

Linux IS supported… nice… from the download page we need the system software and a program to create and “print” the labels to the CD/DVD.

searching a little bit more in depth for ubuntu support I found the files needed specifically for ubuntu (hence ubuntueee as well)…

everything is clearly explaned in the README file, so do not hesitate to read it…

the installation is very straightforward…

sudo dkpg -i lightscribe-1.10.13.1-linux-2.6-intel.deb
sudo dpkg -i lightscribeApplications-1.10.13.1-linux-2.6-intel.deb
sudo dpkg -i 4l_1.0-r6_i386.deb

the first one is the supporting system software, while the later two are different labeler programs (my personal preference goes to the 4L from Lacie).

UPDATE (19/10/2008). update for the system software from lightscribe.com

unfortunatelly you need to start the labeler software from a terminal (or create a desktop link or menu entry, if you wish)

sudo GL-gui

(this needs to be started as root)

works… that’s all…

I got from a musician friend a new track to listen but the format was wma… well… ubuntueee does play this (vlc at least does), but I would prefer mp3 anyway.

so how would I convert wma to mp3 in ubuntueee?

a little bit of google helped me (yes, google is also a verb)

SoundConverter is the easy answer…

it is a nice gui based program (gnome) and does the task well.

installation as usual: sudo apt-get install soundconverter

and the icon for the program appeared under Sound $ Video Tab…

unfortunately it does need one more component for converting to mp3, but the dependency installation was automatically performed when I started the program the first time… it was a gstreamer plugin.

adding wma, selecting mp3 as output, setting bitrate, hit start…

done…

it is just way too convenient not to use it, so why not access it from ubuntueee as well… luckily it is quite easy to setup and use.

after some google search, I found a tutorial, and yes, it is simple to setup.

Just simply start the File Browser and under File there is a connect to Server menu point…

We need to use the service called WebDAV and enter the information:

Server: idisk.mac.com
Port: 80
Folder: user name (without @mac.com)
User Name: (leave blank)

after clicking on Connect, the username (again without @mac bit) and the password is required and voilá, we are browsing our very own iDisk from the File Manager…

even better, on the right hand site of the ubuntueee desktop, where the local folders are there is an icon created (if the WedDAV server was bookmarked)

PS. the idisk web interface is unfortunatelly not supported (well, one can push continue of course) from ubuntueee…

(under the default EeePC OS v1.6 the icon225 works and plays nice by default, but under ubuntueee there are a number of options, one is the novamedia launch2net - not free - or manually set it up as I did earlier)

luckily this manual tweaking is not needed anymore, because the good guys over at Pharscape.org developed not only a backend module, but also a nice gui for devices, like the icon225.

there is a brilliant how-to posted there to setup both the module and the gui interface as well. since the instructions are for ubuntu, it works fine on ubuntueee.

the only needed prerequisit is to install development environment, so the module will compile fine.

sudo apt-get install build-essential

after that it is just a matter of following the instructions (with the exception that at the time of this post, the latest version of the module (v1.5) could be found here, while the how-to offers to download v1.2) and an icon will appear on the Internet Tab in ubuntueee.

ok. since I am Hungarian, I also downloaded the hungarian language pack, and installed it into /usr/share/HSOconnect/languages

Edit: as of 24/Sept/2008, HSO driver v 1.6 is out…

I was trying to get KTorrent work on the EeePC (or any other Linux torrent client for that matter), with very little success…

the closest I got was Vuze (formerly Azerus), but it is a Java client and not a native QT/KDE application, so no cigar…

I found the thread at eeeuser.com, where they suggest enabling different sources from here and there, then to install the compiled deb from 3eportal, but it was missing a library not available in the deb repository of the 901… but… the solution was actually very easy…

install libgmp3c2 from the 900 repo (sudo dpkg -i libgmp3c… )
install ktorrent from 3eportal repo (sudo dpkg -i ktorrent…)

now you can start ktorrent from the console…

and of course it is easy to setup to dock into the system tray…

lets start with this picture:

is it a good enough explanation? since I bought my 900 from Taiwan, it obviously came with Chinese restore DVD… of course the default system language could be changed as described in the wiki, but it is highly unpractical.

and getting a localized restore DVD (from asusparts.eu costs around 10 EUR and 3 weeks to deliver - this later one is the real pain actually)

before we start it is highly advise to backup the content of the /home/user directory and copy to a usb drive the following files and directories (we need them later)
- /lib/modules/2.6.21.4-eeepc/net/
- /lib/modules/2.6.21.4-eeepc/atheros
(these are the drives modules for the ethernet and the wifi)

so, lets put the 901 restore DVD into a usb DVD drive, connected to the EeePC 900 and wipe out the original system…

the restore itself is self-explanatory and after some 5 mins, the little EeePC boots into the freshly installed OS v1.6.1

much better…

of course the About page is as nice as it could be…

software version 1.6.1.36 build date 22/07/2008… nice…

OK. back to work… there is still much tweak to do in order to get a fully working system…

what does not work:
- wifi (founds wifi signal, but does not connect)
- wired ethernet
- sound
- usb camera

obviously, I would say, because the 900 hardware is somewhat different, than the 901, and the OS 1.6.1 is so much optimized (kernel is custom made), so it lacks any other driver modules, then the ones actually built in the machine.

lets grab the modules for the above mentioned hardware components and put them on the freshly installed EeeC.

lets copy the directories /net and /atheros into /lib/modules/2.6.21.4-eeepc/ and execute command sudo depmod

also the /etc/modules file needs to be modified, so the proper modules (900 hw specific ones) will be loaded.

the changes are:

#atl1
#rtl2860sta

ath_pci
atl2
uvcvideo
snd-hda-intel

lets reboot the little 900 with a facelift…

now there is only one item to be fixed… the wifi driver, which coulld be downloaded from here…

lets unpack the files with unrar x wireless.rar
install the driver sudo dpkg -i xandros-wpa-supplicant_0.5.7.x.3.1-1_i386.deb

the other files don’t need to be installed, the wifi will work without them.

easy? well… not too difficult… the EeePC 900 now boots fine into OS 1.6.1 and many new features are available, for me the most important is better 3G support (namely for the Option Icon225 usb).

two remaining issues so far:
- function keys for sound don’t work
- the little icon for wifi status does not work (wifi itself does)

enjoy OS 1.6.1 on the EeePC 900!

interestingly enough even the localized Hungarian version lacks the Hungarian spelling… well… it is probably a bug, or perhaps Asus does not know that Polish (the installed default spelling) and Hungarian are not the same languages.

the Hungarian spelling installation for OO.org is already covered here, and for StarOffice it is even easier than that.

1. to download the Hungarian dictionary for the Magyar Ispell site… the needed file is the precompiled dictionary for StarOffice/OpenOffice, called hu_HU086.zip

2. unzip hu_HU086.zip (extract the dictionaries)

3. sudo mv hu_HU.* /opt/staroffice8/share/dict/ooo

there is no need to edit the dictionary.list file, because the reference for the HU dictionaries are already there (that is one of the reasons, I assume, that this is a bug of the missing dict files).

start StarOffice Writer and enjoy HU spelling…

ps. Also this is the time to install MS Fonts (for proper windows document compatibility)

when browsing flash packed sites it locks up badly, almost freezes. not a nice user experience.

I had a look at the memory (suspected that it is full, as it still has the stock 1 GB Ram), but found something else interesting…

Firefox is using 77% of the cpu… hmm… at some point it was almost 100%… no good.

soo… lets use Adblock extension for Firefox. Simple click and restart exercise and some configuration at the bottom right corner at the browser (Adblock).

Firefox cpu usage went down to 5-8%… nice and easy…

There are MAJOR enhancements in v1.6.1 (most important for me perhaps, that it has native support for the Option Icon225 mobile broadband usb card), so I just had to test this release. But how? It is designed to run on EeePC 901, and not on any other hardware versions (e.g., 701 or 900).

Well… It took almost two days, but it runs now on my 900 machine almost perfectly…

There are bits and pieces needs to be ironed out, but here is a list of the working features:

- graphics (perfect)
- sound (tweaked, works)
- wifi (tweaked, works)
- ethernet (tweaked, works, need to start manually)
- usb (perfect)
- webcam (tweaked, works)
- battery information, acpi (perfect)
- cpu throttling (perfect)
- sleep (works, minor problem still persist, not effecting functionality)
- new feature, auto power saving (perfect)
- function keys, OSD (tweaked, works)
- performance (better than v1.3)

Whats left? The only thing still to be done is the wifi, where I installed the correct drivers, it appears to be working, but it does not get IP address from the router, so still needs to be investigated.

But again, the very best feature for me is that icon225 works like a charm… after inserting the usb modem, a nice (and simple enough) gui pops up and ready to make hsdpa connection. Nice…

All in all, after solving the wifi problem it will be an upgrade (hack really) to keep on the machine…

I wonder if the “pending wifi” problem could be solved with the following found at the eeeuser.com? Need to test it soon.

UPDATE (11.09.2008): and YES!!! Wifi also works according to the instructions above in the link…

More detailed info about the upgrading process will come soon…

ps. I love the new 7800 battery…
ps2. ScribeFire rocks…

The EeePC OS is really a mix of KDE and Gtk, but it is primarily based on Xandros, which is a KDE distro, so KBlogger seemed as the natural choice. Well… Installation was not that easy, so I had to look elsewhere.

Luckily Firefox has so many add-on extensions, so finding a blogging add-on was really easy.

ScribeFire looks nice, matured and feature rich software. As a matter of fact I am posting this already from it…

Like any firefox add-on installation, it was a point and click job and SribeFire was already functional after restarting the browser.

 Nice… Many good features to  be discovered…