1. The K3520 Vodafone dongle does not get recognised by the network manager anymore. When I plug it in, it shows up as a CDROM drive, but does not get unmounted an then used as a modem like it was with Linux Mint 8 (Helena).
2. The Interface seems to be really slow as to make it nearly unusable. The delay between clicking on a program to launch it and the actual launch is around 3-5 seconds. This is unacceptable.

To keep myself sane, I think I will just go back to Helena for now and be happy that everything works well enough to use the netbook on the move.

So in a little over an hour you go from full charge to nothing just by using the laptop the way it was intended to be used. So despite its small size, the 2133 was never really designed to be too far away from a charger for too long. It is almost like having a car like a Honda Jazz with a petrol tank the size of a coffee cup. “Yes it is frugal, sir, but it will only go for a half a kilometre no matter how you drive it.”

Recently I discovered the wonderful Linux Mint 8 (Helena), while searching for a desktop linux distro to install as a virtual machine on my MacBook Pro. Despite all the misgivings that I have had in the past for the various Linux distros, I must say that they have been improving all the time. The last time I tried to install Linux on the 2133 was when Ubuntu 9.10 came out. What a disaster that was. Wifi did not want to work, then I went back to 9.04 but found that I could just not get my Vodafone Prepaid Mobile Broadband stick to work (K3520). In the end, out of frustration and spite I decided to whack XP back on and because I needed a little mobile word processor.

Linux Mint seems to run with a little bit of lag sometimes, but overall the experience has made my faith in Linux desktop distro strong again. Using Helena I could use my Vodafone Prepaid Broadband to connect to the net and wifi worked right out of the box.

If you need a decent desktop distro that looks half decent (who like brown anyway?) and works well out of the box for your 2133, then I can recommend Linux Mint 8 (Helena).

I suspect the new OS will be based on one of the pre-existing Linux distro (Ubuntu?) with the Google layer built on top to enable constant synchronising of data when online and caching mode when offline (ala Google Gears?). When it is released, hopefully it will free us all from having to worry what or which computer we are working on at any given time. To a certain extent, I have already implemented some of the ideas of cloud computing by using Google services to synchronise my calendar on my notebooks and phones. I guess the only other thing that I would like with the Google Chrome OS is cheaper data rates. This issue of data charges is what prevent a lot of people from utlising cloud-based services more often on their wireless devices (phones).

At the completion of my install of Jaunty Jackalope (Ubuntu 9.04) on my netbook, I found that Aptana just would not load. It would show the logo for a couple of seconds then it would just come up with an error. After scratching my head for a little while, I tried to look up an answer on Google and I found this thread on the Aptana user forum.

So basically, the issue is the version of xulrunner that Jaunty comes with. Currently it is version 1.9, while Aptana needs version 1.8. To fix this issue you need to download xulrunner 1.8 and unzip it to /usr/lib, so its path would be something like /usr/lib/xulrunner/. Then you create a script which looks like this:

#!/bin/sh
MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/usr/lib/xulrunner-1.8.1.3
if [ $LD_LIBRARY_PATH ]; then
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
else
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME
fi
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME LD_LIBRARY_PATH
~/aptana/AptanaStudio -vm /usr/lib/jvm/ia32-java-6-sun/jre/bin/java

Make the script executable and then on your panel add an application shortcut to point to this script file, mine is called “aptanastart”. Oh, and you need to have Java installed, since Aptana requires it.

The only issue that can be noted is with the wifi connection manager. It seems after a few hibernates that the connection is stuck at the “getting ip address…” stage. This can be quickly fixed with a reboot. Other than this issue, I have not found any major ones to mention. Sound works flawlessly, Bluetooth works normally and the webcam works with Cheese (I have not tested it to work with Skype or anything like that).

Recently, I also purchased the 6-cell battery for the Mini-note, which makes the notebook (or netbook, if you like) much more usable. Since I use this notebook mainly for writing text, coding and web browsing, I have found that having that extra amount of battery capacity makes the notebook a little easier to use. No longer staring at the battery icon every few minutes to see if I will have time to finish what I am doing. It puts the usability of this little notebook on par with my MacBook and my Dell Inspiron laptop. Using it with little power management and with wifi on seems to give around 3-3.5 hrs of uninterrupted use. What joy!

Had this notebook shipped with Jackalope instead of Windows Vista Basic (standard on all Mini-notes shipped in Australia), it would have been a winner from the start. A 6-cell battery, even though it adds a little to the price should have been standard on all models.

Having upgraded the BIOS last time around, this time installation was quite sane and smooth. It was so smooth that it happened while I was watching TV without a single glitch. When install was done, I rebooted and voila! The screen worked OK, there was no need for funny hacks or even VIA’s driver to install and Wifi and Bluetooth worked out of the box! When I plugged in my USB modem from Three networks (Huawei E220), it was recognised straight away.

When I was done entering my wifi configuration, I was online surfing the net with a fresh install of Ubuntu 9.04 on my HP mini-note 2133. I have not tested everything so far, but everything that I need from a basic notebook perspective was working quite well.

UPDATE

I have now had sometime to test the webcam and bluetooth and they are both working fine. Webcam works fine through Cheese, but I have not tested through Skype.

When I woke up in the morning, the notebook was in an extremely hot state, it was more than the normal warmth you get from running a notebook for a few hours. When I tried to switch it on, it was not responding as normal. There was no HP logo at startup even though all the normal lights were on. The notebook was pretty much dead and did not respond to anything.

After leaving it alone for about a week (actually I just forgot all about it for a few days), I decided to contact HP since the notebook was still under warranty. After the usual menu selections I spoke to an operator who suggested that I plugged the notebook to the power (already done), to see which lights were on (already done) and then to plug it into an external monitor (already tried that too). He suggested that it might need a mainboard replacement (thought so).

The operator then rang me back and suggested that he could guide me over the phone to try to reseat the RAM module (unfortunately, already tried and I even tried another module of the same specification–1GB DDR2 667Mhz). He then said that I would get a phone call from an engineer who would visit me with a new mainboard.

Three days later, the engineer showed up and replaced the motherboard in all under 20 minutes. I was very impressed with the service and wish all notebook manufacturers provided the same level of service. Good work HP!  Shame on you Toshiba! Shame on you Apple!

1. Update the BIOS
   The latest version of the BIOS is F.05F for the Mini-note that was released in Australia.‭ ‬You can download it from‭ ‬here.‭ ‬Instructions on how to update the BIOS can be found inside the zip package and you will need a USB flash drive to format and use as a boot device,‭ ‬which should automatically update your system’s BIOS.‭ ‬I found that once the BIOS has been updated,‭ ‬you can install Ubuntu in the normal way instead of having to rely on the‭ ‘‬xforcevesa‭’ ‬option when starting the installer.
2. Download the latest driver from VIA
   Download the latest‭ driver ‬ from VIA,‭ ‬make sure it is the one intended for Ubuntu‭ ‬8.10‭ (‬there are two drivers,‭ ‬one is marked as the‭ ‬2D driver and the other one is called gfx,‭ ‬the one with “2D” is the one I am using as I don’t care too much about Compiz and such‭)‬.‭ ‬This has to be done after installing Ubuntu‭ ‬8.10‭ ‬using the vesa driver‭ (‬very basic graphics functionality and it does not support external monitors‭) ‬such as shown in the‭ ‬ Ubuntu Wiki.
3. ‏Unzip the package from VIA and run the setup process by using the the file called‭ “‬v2dinstall‭”‬.‭ ‬This has to be done as root,‭ ‬so the command may look something like this:‭
   sudo‭ ‬./v2Dinstall‭ [‬will prompt you for your password‭‬].‭
   When the installer is done,‭ ‬edit your xorg.conf file so it will look somewhat like this:

   #‎ ‏xorg.conf‭ (‬X.Org X Window System server configuration file‭)
   ‬#‭
   ‬#‭ ‬This file was generated by reidy90,‭ ‬by copying correct settings from‭
   ‬#‭ ‬the xorg.conf that was provided with the SUSE hp‭ ‬2133.‭
   ‬#‭
   ‬#‭ ‬Edit this file with caution,‭ ‬and see the xorg.conf manual page.‭
   ‬#‭ (‬Type‭ “‬man xorg.conf‭” ‬at the shell prompt.‭)
   ‬#‭
   ‬#‭ ‬This file is automatically updated on xserver-xorg package upgrades‭ *‬only‭*
   ‬#‭ ‬if it has not been modified since the last upgrade of the xserver-xorg‭
   ‬#‭ ‬package.‭
   ‬#‭
   ‬#‭ ‬Note that some configuration settings that could be done previously‭
   ‬#‭ ‬in this file,‭ ‬now are automatically configured by the server and settings‭
   ‬#‭ ‬here are ignored.‭
   ‬#‭
   ‬#‭ ‬If you have edited this file but would like it to be automatically updated‭
   ‬#‭ ‬again,‭ ‬run the following command:‭
   ‬#‭   ‬sudo dpkg-reconfigure‭ ‬-phigh xserver-xorg‭

   ‬Section‭ “‬Device‭”
   ‬BoardName‭    “‬Framebuffer Graphics‭”

   ‬#Change the line underneath to‭ “‬via‭” ‬after you have installed the driver‭ (‬step‭ ‬3‭)‬.‭
   ‬Driver‭       “‬vesa‭”
   ‬Identifier‭   “‬Device‭[‬0‭]”
   ‬Screen‭       ‬0‭
   ‬VendorName‭   “‬VIA Technology‭”
   ‬Option‭ “‬NoDDCValue‭”
   ‬Option‭ “‬ActiveDevice‭” “‬LCD,CRT‭”
   ‬Option‭ “‬PanelID‭”      “‬3‭”
   ‬Option‭  “‬DisplayHardwareLayout‭” “‬LCD‭”
   ‬Option‭  “‬ForceLCD‭”
   ‬#‭[<‬bool‭>]
   ‬Option‭  “‬VideoOnDevice‭” “‬LCD‭”
   ‬#‭  ‬Option‭ “‬LCDPort‭” “‬DVP0‭”
   ‬EndSection‭

   ‬Section‭ “‬Monitor‭”
   ‬DisplaySize‭  ‬250‭ ‬150‭
   ‬HorizSync‭    ‬28-500‭
   ‬Identifier‭   “‬Monitor‭[‬0‭]”
   ‬ModelName‭    “‬VIEWSONIC VA912-4SERIES‭”
   ‬Option‭       “‬DPMS‭”
   ‬VendorName‭   “‬VSC‭”
   ‬VertRefresh‭  ‬43-60‭
   ‬UseModes‭     “‬Modes‭[‬0‭]”
   ‬EndSection‭

   ‬Section‭ “‬Modes‭”
   ‬Identifier‭   “‬Modes‭[‬0‭]”
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1280×800‭” ‬120.33‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1368‭ ‬1504‭ ‬1728‭ ‬800‭ ‬801‭ ‬804‭ ‬839‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1280×800‭” ‬118.88‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1368‭ ‬1504‭ ‬1728‭ ‬800‭ ‬801‭ ‬804‭ ‬839‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1280×800‭” ‬116.21‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1360‭ ‬1496‭ ‬1712‭ ‬800‭ ‬801‭ ‬804‭ ‬838‭
   ‬#‭  ‬Modeline‭     “‬1280×768‭” ‬114.53‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1360‭ ‬1496‭ ‬1712‭ ‬768‭ ‬769‭ ‬772‭ ‬806‭
   ‬#‭  ‬Modeline‭     “‬1280×768‭” ‬113.01‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1360‭ ‬1496‭ ‬1712‭ ‬768‭ ‬769‭ ‬772‭ ‬805‭
   ‬#‭  ‬Modeline‭     “‬1280×768‭” ‬111.63‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1360‭ ‬1496‭ ‬1712‭ ‬768‭ ‬769‭ ‬772‭ ‬805‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1280×768‭” ‬80.14‭  ‬1280‭ ‬1344‭ ‬1480‭ ‬1680‭  ‬768‭ ‬769‭ ‬772‭ ‬795‭  ‬-HSync‭ ‬+Vsync‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1024×768‭” ‬92.05‭ ‬1024‭ ‬1088‭ ‬1200‭ ‬1376‭ ‬768‭ ‬769‭ ‬772‭ ‬806‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1024×768‭” ‬90.83‭ ‬1024‭ ‬1088‭ ‬1200‭ ‬1376‭ ‬768‭ ‬769‭ ‬772‭ ‬805‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1024×768‭” ‬89.72‭ ‬1024‭ ‬1088‭ ‬1200‭ ‬1376‭ ‬768‭ ‬769‭ ‬772‭ ‬805‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1280×600‭” ‬88.68‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1352‭ ‬1488‭ ‬1696‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬630‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1280×600‭” ‬87.48‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1352‭ ‬1488‭ ‬1696‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬629‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1280×600‭” ‬85.59‭ ‬1280‭ ‬1344‭ ‬1480‭ ‬1680‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬629‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1024×600‭” ‬71.11‭ ‬1024‭ ‬1080‭ ‬1192‭ ‬1360‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬630‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1024×600‭” ‬69.32‭ ‬1024‭ ‬1080‭ ‬1184‭ ‬1344‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬629‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬1024×600‭” ‬68.48‭ ‬1024‭ ‬1080‭ ‬1184‭ ‬1344‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬629‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬800×600‭” ‬55.22‭ ‬800‭ ‬840‭ ‬928‭ ‬1056‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬630‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬800×600‭” ‬54.47‭ ‬800‭ ‬840‭ ‬928‭ ‬1056‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬629‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬800×600‭” ‬53.80‭ ‬800‭ ‬840‭ ‬928‭ ‬1056‭ ‬600‭ ‬601‭ ‬604‭ ‬629‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬768×576‭” ‬50.62‭ ‬768‭ ‬808‭ ‬888‭ ‬1008‭ ‬576‭ ‬577‭ ‬580‭ ‬605‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬768×576‭” ‬49.92‭ ‬768‭ ‬808‭ ‬888‭ ‬1008‭ ‬576‭ ‬577‭ ‬580‭ ‬604‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬768×576‭” ‬49.32‭ ‬768‭ ‬808‭ ‬888‭ ‬1008‭ ‬576‭ ‬577‭ ‬580‭ ‬604‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬640×480‭” ‬34.80‭ ‬640‭ ‬672‭ ‬736‭ ‬832‭ ‬480‭ ‬481‭ ‬484‭ ‬504‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬640×480‭” ‬34.38‭ ‬640‭ ‬672‭ ‬736‭ ‬832‭ ‬480‭ ‬481‭ ‬484‭ ‬504‭
   ‬Modeline‭      “‬640×480‭” ‬33.90‭ ‬640‭ ‬672‭ ‬736‭ ‬832‭ ‬480‭ ‬481‭ ‬484‭ ‬503‭
   ‬EndSection‭

   ‬Section‭ “‬Screen‭”
   ‬SubSection‭ “‬Display‭”
   ‬Modes‭      “‬1280×768‭”
   ‬EndSubSection‭
   ‬Device‭       “‬Device‭[‬0‭]”
   ‬Identifier‭   “‬Screen‭[‬0‭]”
   ‬Monitor‭      “‬Monitor‭[‬0‭]”
   ‬EndSection

4. Under the driver option,‭ ‬you need to change the driver from‭ “‬vesa‭” ‬to‭ “‬via‭”‬.
5. Reboot the machine and you should end up with a netbook running Ubuntu‭ ‬8.10‭ ‬utilising the newest‭ ‬2D driver form VIA.

I have not actually used the gfx unified driver provided by VIA,‭ ‬because I personally I do not care about or need the compiz desktop effects on a netbook as tiny as the HP‭ ‬2133‭ ‬Mini-note.‭ ‬I just want a netbook that I can write reports on.‭ ‬It just needs to have basic media capabilities such as playing video or audio files,‭ ‬without any major problems.‭

Good luck.

Soon after i Acquired the I-mate Jamin, to make the experience even worse, I ended up buying a MacBook. The first thing I wanted to do was install Thunderbird (my favorite email client on all platform) on it and to my disappointment, I discovered that I could not do a sync between Mac and Windows Mobile without either using Parallels and Windows (and then only with that beast called Outlook) or buying some third party software. It seems that neither Apple or Microsoft wanted to know about people in my situation who did not want to subscribe to either one of the platforms (aka platform agnostic) for everything. The only thing that came close to being a solution was to use a Funambol Server installed on one of my servers, which was not only clumsy to use, but also difficult to manage. In the end I settled with using Schedule World so I could do sync between my Windows XP, Linux and OS X notebooks and my Windows Mobile 5.0 phone. This approach, while it works, is not really ideal since I have to rely on an external server to manage the synchronisation and the data.

The I-mate Jamin was a reasonably good phone, but its shortcomings were mainly caused by the Windows Mobile platform it was built on. While it works almost seamlessly in a Windows world, when you start venturing outside that walled garden the problems become unbearable. The minute you don’t want to use Outlook anymore (did I mention that an early version of Microsoft anti-virus product ate my entire Outlook database because of a single infected email?) you start seeing the ugly brick walls and quickly hitting your head against it. This gets a lot worse when you decide to try working on another platform such as Mac OS X. While there is Microsoft Office for Mac, there is no activesync for Mac. Entourage which was supposed to resemble Outlook on the Mac does not have support for syncing with Windows Mobile.

The only way you could access the files on your Windows Mobile was to use the Acitvesync software which was not a good thing when Activesync decides to play up. In the end I basically had had enough of the “closed” way in which Windows Mobile was working, so this time around I decided to look around for a phone built on a platform which supports open standards.

My first choice would have been the iphone from Apple. It is a beautifully-designed piece of technology with a very nice and intuitive interface, based on a platform which originated from a Unix world. I was quite sure about getting the iphone, until I discovered that despite its appeal, it does not really support open standards that well and I just could not understand why they would limit the bluetooth profile to headset-only. So the iphone is out.

The next on my list was the Nokia E71. Ever since my partner acquired the E65 phone from Nokia I was always a little partial to the Symbian platform, so when the Nokia E71 was released I was itching to get my hands on one to try it out. However, when I read more about the specs it soon looked like a very good candidate for my next phone. It supports 3G HSDPA, most of the common bluetooth profiles, SyncML synchronisation standard, Wifi, Assisted GPS, Flash Lite 3.0, push email  and the list goes on. It even has IRDA support.

The day I went to a Three shop in Sydney, I just wanted to check it out and hold it in my hands. The phone feels very nice to hold. Its thin and wide frame sits well in my hand and having a qwerty keyboard definitely makes things a lot easier when it comes to hammering an email or a text message. The screen looks nice and smooth and the phone is suprisingly large. It definitely amazes me what Nokia engineers manage to fit into such a thin and small device.

I liked the device so much that I decided to sign up for a plan right away. What I ended up getting was the E71 on a $29 cap plus $10 handset repayment a month on a 24-month contract. This was cheaper than getting the E71 on a $69 cap plan with no repayment. To quench my thirst for mobile data, I added $20 X-series (1GB/month) to the plan which brought the total to $59 per month including 1GB of data. This is definitely in my ball park and having 1GB of mobile data to play with means I will not hesitate to use the phone as a modem with either my Nokia N800 tablet or a notebook when needed.

Right after I had had enough of Knoppix in a PMI (poor man’s install) configuration, I decided to look for something better. While Knoppix was a great beginning and an eye-opener to what could be achieved in a well-configured Linux laptop, it was not enough. It did not allow for software install (well, without a lot of difficulties anyway) and everything I worked on had to be saved onto an external USB drive.

There was no way I was going back to Mandrake 10.0 with its desktop oriented architecture. Even though Mandrake, could be configured to run well on a notebook, but it simply could not match what Windows had to offer in terms of efficiency. As common with a lot of Linux distros at the time, neither Mandrake or Knoppix really offered much in terms of power management for the notebook users. I found that with a fully charged battery (which I could get 3hrs + with on Windows XP SP2), I would be lucky to get around 1.5-2.0hrs on Linux.

Right about this time, I am not sure how, I stumbled upon Ubuntu. I think it might have been getting a little bit of coverage at that time and I somehow thought it was the possible cure to my problems with Linux. I think the first version of Ubuntu that I installed was version 5.10. Like when I installed Knoppix, Ubuntu was an eye and mind opener. I simply thought it was brilliant.

It had a great set of software and for the first time ever, I had installed a Linux distro that could almost recognise all the features of my notebook. It also auto-mounted any drives that I could plug in, including USB Flash drives and my external USB hard drives. It recognised my wireless cards, sound cards, the selectable CPU speed feature of the BIOS and just about everything else I had on the notebook. The only things that did not get recognised was the SD card slot (ENE?). This was simply great.

While everything was great, Ubuntu still seemed to have a problem with some of the power-saving features of my notebook. I partly blame this on Toshiba for making a notebook that featured proprietary hooks (DMI) for the BIOS features through which software could be used to set the level of screen brightness and other features that can normally be accessed through the function keys, as well as things such as the cooling fan.

When Ubuntu reached version 7.10 (Gutsy) I decided that it was now time to dump Windows altogether and just use Linux for my day to day computing (at least on this notebook). This proved to be quite a challenge, especially when it came to power management. Even though Linux support for notebooks had matured by this stage (Dell was offering ubuntu pre-installed on some models), there were still issues caused by the lack of transparency from the hardware vendors which prevented Linux drivers from being able to work properly with some.

To make the function buttons work (at least F7 and the screen dimming keys) I had to install the omnibook kernel module which could access the DMI interface of the BIOS to dim the LCD and to control the fan, wireless switch, etc. This was not a straight forward process. As is common with Linux distros, I had to trawl through numerous forums, blogs and other articles online to discover more information about this problem. Even though in the end I managed to install it, the official stable version of the omnibook module just would not compile on Gutsy.

To get the omnibook kernel module to work in Gutsy, first I had to switch to the Generic Kernel instead of the standard Ubuntu i386 kernel. As well as having to switch kernels, one also needs to install the kernel source (linux-source in Synaptics). With those two things done, I was then able to compile the omnibook module but there was one other catch. To get omnibook to compile on Gutsy you also had to grab the latest nightly build from CVS. To discover all this information, I had to trawl Google and the forums nightly for almost four weeks (Ok, I had to also work in between searches).

While the overall experience on Gutsy was quite pleasant and straightforward, to make a complete install that took advantage of the power management features of my notebook I had to really get my hands dirty with compiling source codes, etc. This might be fine for someone with a little bit of technical aptitude such as myself, but for a lot of other computer users out there, this could be a problem. I hope this article will help those people that have come across the same problem.

On the subject of power management on notebooks, I should also mention an excellent little tool called PowerTop. I was able to bump up my battery life from just under 3 hrs with one battery to about 6.5 hrs with two batteries, screen dimmed and powertop helping me optimise processes running on the system to minimise the power footprint of the system.

My advice is, if you are buying a new notebook and wanted to have Linux installed as your default OS, make sure you purchase it from a vendor such as Dell who will send you a completely pre-configured system from the factory.