Aspire One - What about Work?
Posted by 
Michael Walsh) on Jun 24 2008 | Tagged as: Acer
This is the last video I made of the Aspire One before having to hand it back (sob).
This time I have a look at its word processing abilities, find out (for the Linux / OpenSource illiterate amongst us) whether it’s compatible with Word and also have a check to make sure the webcam isn’t going to give me problems 
Can’t think of anything I’d need to add to this machine. Can’t wait till it comes out (and neither can my daughter)!
UPDATE: I managed to totally screw this up and put up a duplicate video. Apologies for the sloppy cut ‘n paste technique… The right one’s up now…
| 3.5 (1 person) |
on 25 Jun 2008 at 7:35 am 1
richard mullens (Check me out!) said …
Well, I’d like to know the following:-
How does one get a command line interface.
What’s the default root password.
Does it come with GCC installed.
Can one use Fedora rpms to add new programs.
Are you using wifi or a network cable.
If you add an SD(HC) card, will removing it break the filesystem.
Can you attach, say, a 320GB 2.5″ USB drive.
Is firefox 3 present.
Are most codecs present.
Will it play windows media files.
And so on.
on 25 Jun 2008 at 10:30 am 2
Peter Perlich (Check me out!) said …
Hi,
i got the same question richard has, plus:
you used the left mouse-button to left-click/dbl-left-click all the time, isn’t it possible to do so on the touchpad?
and
what about a scrolling function on the touchpad?
is it just me or is this video the same as the previous one?
thanks!
peter
on 25 Jun 2008 at 7:34 pm 3
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
Richard, here are some of my assumption from being a Fedora user:
How does one get a command line interface. - make a terminal link and put it in the “home page” under work or something.
What’s the default root password. - probably like “default” pretty sure it will be provided in acer’s manual (unless acer do not want you to modify the default programs since most people are not familier with linux yet)
Does it come with GCC installed. - probably not, it is a mobile communication/work device, not some sort of machine that a programmer would want.
Can one use Fedora rpms to add new programs. - if it is on redhat, i would think so, better yet, if it is fedora, only not Gnome or KDE, then it would be very possible.
Are you using wifi or a network cable. - he is using wifi, I think there is a RJ45 plugin too.
If you add an SD(HC) card, will removing it break the filesystem. - should be fine if you are not transfering things, but I would always recommand using the “eject” fucntion on all Unix softwares
Can you attach, say, a 320GB 2.5″ USB drive. - A self powered/dual USB powerd one(meaning that it has it’s own power adaptor instead of just a single USB)
Is firefox 3 present. - I would assume no(guessed by the time of development of this product) Michael should be able to answer this.
Are most codecs present. - probably some free distribution ones will be installed, Divx Xvid AC3 shouldn’t be a problem. they are quite popular and free.
Will it play windows media files. - pretty sure that .avi, .mp3, will work. .wmv and .wma is not seen often anymore, but should be compatible
Peter Perlich,
If it is the Synaptics touchpad, you can always get the control panel and enable the scrolling and tapping function in Linux, but it is not as easy. I do hope it is enabled by default
Lets wait and see if Michael can help us out for these questions with more in depth explainations.
I want to get one of these baby too, I need to get a job though…
on 25 Jun 2008 at 8:15 pm 4
Michael Walsh (Check me out!) said …
Dammit guys I wish you’d asked this while I still had it.
I’m not that familiar with Linux - you can probably tell what a newbie I am by the way I clunked around what was on offer.
I was getting the touchpad to respond on some occasions (clicking on the icons on the home page and in Open Office) but on others it wouldn’t (file manager) so I had to double click. Like I said on the videos the Aspire One I had was a pre-production model so there are always some glitches (the batteries didn’t work on the 8920 videos I made which is why it was always plugged into the mains). To be honest, I’m not 100% sure the interface “names” will be the same on final models…
I was able to scroll vertically by using the right hand side of the touchpad but forgot to put that small detail into the videos (mea culpa).
There is, as Morris correctly points out, an RJ45 socket on the left hand side but the point of these videos was to show how fast it picked up my wireless connection in the office - something it had no trouble with.
On the drawing board (future versions) there will be WiFi + 3G OR WiFi + WIMAX versions on offer. Don’t ask me about time-frames as that’s not my call…
One thing I totally forgot to check out was the version of Firefox although I can confirm that the interface was NOT the same as what I see on Firefox 3. I guess an update is just a question of compatibility/time.
One of the slides in the original presentation I saw was that it comes with a ton of Codecs pre-installed. Which ones in particular, I’m afraid I’ll have to let someone else answer when it comes out. I’ll see if I can find the final specs from Acer HQ but you’ll have to wait.
All the Linux-specific questions (root passwords, terminal links and GCC) I’m unable to answer as, to put it bluntly, I’m out of my depth. Sorry.
Lucky for me I got Morris on my side
on 25 Jun 2008 at 9:40 pm 5
Michael Walsh (Check me out!) said …
Peter, you were absolutely right.
Apologies and large helpings of humble pie!! I’ve put the right one up now…
on 26 Jun 2008 at 3:55 am 6
Matt A (Check me out!) said …
Be useful to know if it supports SDHC.
From what I have read reports go bothways, the 5in1 drive maybe, the dedicated SD slot no.
on 26 Jun 2008 at 4:40 am 7
richard mullens (Check me out!) said …
Thanks for all your interesting posts.
Although this device is very portable, its size and low power consumption would make it a good replacement for the power hungry linux box I use for SSH and as a webserver.
on 27 Jun 2008 at 10:23 am 8
Stroopwafels (Check me out!) said …
Hi Richard, I hope it will help…
How does one get a command line interface.
What’s the default root password.
Does it come with GCC installed.
Can one use Fedora rpms to add new programs.
Aspire one is a closed system, additional Software can only be installed via Acer Phone-home web services.
Can you attach, say, a 320GB 2.5″ USB drive.
It should works.
Is firefox 3 present.
No, Firefox 2.0.0.14
Are most codecs present.
Will it play windows media files.
Yes. Through the MediaMaster app. (see http://blog.mediamaster.com/faq/)
on 27 Jun 2008 at 10:40 am 9
Stroopwafels (Check me out!) said …
Some other Aspire One quick facts:
No Antivirus available for Linpus (do you really need one?)
Live Update function will manage firmware, OS, Kernel, patches and security updates
Internal webcam won’t work with Skype (only SkypeTalk is supported). Video chat is supported for MSN and Yahoo accounts. File tranfers for MSN, Yahoo, Google.
Mail services supported:
POP3/ SMTP/ IMAP supported
Lotus Notes web service
Exchange web service
Note: No support on Hotmail supported in one mail but users can access through webmail services.
Aspire one mail can support up 6 accounts.
DRM Protected content cannot be supported / played on Aspire one.
Approx. 3GB (2.4 GB) are taken by OS and applications
In future, user may use the “Live-update” to upgrade the system to support the SDHC/SD2.0 too
Linpus Linux Lite support the following security protocol
1. WEP 128 bit key
2. WEP 40/104 Bit HEX
3. WEP 40/128 Bit ASCII
4. WPA & WPA2 Personal
…hope it will help…
on 27 Jun 2008 at 11:08 am 10
Stroopwafels (Check me out!) said …
and forgot to say about power consumption:
~ 3 hours battery life for 3 cell battery pack
~ 7 hours battery life for 6 cell battery pack
of course this time could be shorter depending on computer settings, applicantions launched and it will diminish with time and use (as for all battery packs).
;o)
on 27 Jun 2008 at 9:46 pm 11
richard mullens (Check me out!) said …
Hi Stroopwafels,
You have lots of useful information !
I guess I’ll need to look out for alternative distributions.
Not sure if it was the Acer Aspire One, but I saw a laptop with Roman and Asian letters on the keys. It looked really nice.
I wonder if the source code will be released.
Thanks for your help.
on 27 Jun 2008 at 11:46 pm 12 24 Hours With The Aspire One | Nothing But Netbooks! said …
[...] Some of the work apps in Linpus Linux [...]
on 17 Jul 2008 at 2:35 am 13
Mike Silva (Check me out!) said …
Actualy, Skype works prety fine (2.0.0.72 from oficial site - for fedora core). You’ll just need to make a symbolic link to /usr/bin/skype to your home to call it (just like gnome terminal)
Your root password is set by yourself in initial first time wizard. (maybe not root, but user with sudo) and you can make everything with this password.
You have in /boot the original kernel config file used an compile time, so it’s easy if you want to add modules later.
I’ve been having some problems with libvacodec in mplayer - don’t know why, maybe it’s broken, so most used video codecs (DivX, XviD, h.264, some more used be libvacodec and ffmpeg), but you can use the binary codecs availble from MPlayer official sites, and they wokr fine, just put then in /usr/lib/codecs.
Firefox it’s 2.0.0.14, I’m waiting for an update with version 3 and a bug-fixed MPlayer.
I could easyly configure a 3.5G (HSDPA) USB modem (model E169) booting with this device in a USB port U’ll get /dev/ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2 (U’ll only need ttyUSB0 with the right chatscript) and pppd will work fine, (could not integrate in NetworkMAnager Gui yet, but I’ll call it from a shell.
on 23 Jul 2008 at 11:46 pm 14
Sid (Check me out!) said …
I own an Acer Aspire One.
The command line can be accessed using Alt + F2
Skype (Fedore
video works well with the camera.
You can add an external HDD I have used USB and mains powered drives. 80gb upto 4Tb Drobo.
Yes SDHC is supported, I have used 16gb so far, 32gb is in the mail.
You can add an SDHC card in the left slot, the space is appended to the internal SSD, removing the card had no detrimental effect (but the SSD was not full).
RPMs seem to work ok.
Touch pad scrolling is H&V I have also seen something about circular scrolling.
Mike, on the E220 you dont et /dev/ttyUSB0, ttyUSB1 and ttyUSB2
But you do get:
/dev/usb1 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep04 /dev/usbdev2.1_ep00
/dev/usb2 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep05 /dev/usbdev2.1_ep81
/dev/usb3 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep06 /dev/usbdev3.1_ep00
/dev/usb4 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep07 /dev/usbdev3.1_ep81
/dev/usbdev1.1_ep00 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep0a /dev/usbdev4.1_ep00
/dev/usbdev1.1_ep81 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep0b /dev/usbdev4.1_ep81
/dev/usbdev1.2_ep00 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep0c /dev/usbdev5.1_ep00
/dev/usbdev1.2_ep82 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep83 /dev/usbdev5.1_ep81
/dev/usbdev1.2_ep83 /dev/usbdev1.3_ep89
I am currently wrestling with this (Linix noob sorry)
I have answered as much as I can, any questions please ask.
regards
Sid
on 24 Jul 2008 at 3:41 pm 15
Igor Savin (Check me out!) said …
Which filesystem is used in Acer Aspire One, may I inquire?
on 24 Jul 2008 at 8:34 pm 16
dandesigns (Check me out!) said …
it’s an ext2 Filesystem out of the box.
on 24 Jul 2008 at 9:55 pm 17
Sid (Check me out!) said …
The system monitor reports ext2.
regards
on 25 Jul 2008 at 9:53 am 18
Igor Savin (Check me out!) said …
Thanks for the reply. Interesting. I wonder why none of the Flash-storage oriented filesystem were used, be it JFFS, YAFFS or LogFS. Or, in any case, why it’s ext2, not ext3 (journalling causes additional writes decreasing flash lifespan?..)
It’s rather curious to speculate how much would appropriate filesystem expand the forecasted 3-year life of AA-One SSD drive.
on 25 Jul 2008 at 9:12 pm 19
Sid (Check me out!) said …
The SSD is easier to change than the ram, some folks at the Aspire user forum are fitting 300x CF cards in place of the SSD.
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=59&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=300x
on 04 Aug 2008 at 11:39 am 20
Andrew (Check me out!) said …
>How does one get a command line interface.
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=28
>What’s the default root password.
I lost it as I powered off when the wizard ran ‘cos I was installing extra RAM. But “sudo su” works then “passwd” will change it
>Does it come with GCC installed.
No.
>Can one use Fedora rpms to add new programs.
Yes. And yum, which is set up with the correct repositories AFAIK. So far I’ve added openssh and rdesktop.
>Are most codecs present.
No. The mplayer Win32 codecs directory /usr/lib/codecs is empty. However, codecs can be added from the Mplayer site. http://andrew.daviel.org/media.html
> Why is JFFS not used ?
(from the Nokia tablet community) -
JFFS2 requires a direct interface and the SD cards are mounted over a SCSI emulation. Write levelling is taken care of at a low level.
on 13 Aug 2008 at 7:51 am 21
OptusBen (Check me out!) said …
Does anyone know how to set up a E169 USB 3G modem step by step?? Im not a techy, but work in the Telco industry and want to be able to set this up for a customer.
Thanks guys.
on 16 Sep 2008 at 8:09 pm 22
mikalob (Check me out!) said …
hey can i use a USB CD/DVD-rom to install a gamne like sims or something and will it run on it and work properly ????
on 17 Sep 2008 at 7:51 am 23
Morris Lee (Check me out!) said …
if you are talking about the windows, then yes, it will work fine, only limitation is the hardware processing horse power, I believe sims 1 runs fine on low graphics settings, and unplayable(reported by some users) for sims 2
but you never know, he/she might had stuff like antiviruses Nort… cough..cough.. instaled to slow the game down.
I am running XP with the SSD and able to run Halo on low settings, just to give you an idea on ther power that AA1 is got