Pimp Mobile - Hardware

*WARNING* Modifing your Eee will invalidate your warranty and can be destructive if not performed correctly, it is also addictive!

Now my shiny Eee is running Ubuntu nice and smoothly, it was time to invalidate the warranty and add some funky goodies in the shape of extra storage and bluetooth.

The 701 conveniently has some space next to the memory slot, and this is a great place to hide the newly added gadgets.

A quick trip to tesco's procured the necessary hardware

Asus EEEPC Networking problem

We seem to have a steady stream of Asus eeePC lately most with Linux Xandros as a base operating system, the problem this time revolved around the failure of the eeePC to communicate via an encrypted network. In the main most wireless network routers are capable of between two or three levels of network encryption across the wireless access point.

These range from :

Mounting USB external drives in Ubuntu 8.04 (Hardy Heron)

I don't believe the data here in is any longer relevant and can be safely archived

We came across this interesting problem with Hardy Heron the other day, we wanted to insert a USB flash drive into a computer running the latest Linux distro and access it's contents. It obviously tried to mount the device into the file system but something was stopping it.

Introduction

After a recent crash that caused some loss of data (not Linux), I decided to look at the possibility of an external USB back-up drive, in order to back up on a more regular basis; I lost about a weeks worth of data plus some email records. The thinking behind it was to have a drive that would back-up from both Windows® and Linux machines and therefore, the file system had to be recognised by both systems.

Sound for Linux using ASUS P5W DW

After trying many tutorials scattered around the web with no luck, the problem was discussed at one of our regular SOSLUG meetings, and found that the Dell Inspirion 1521 shares a similar audio chipset that requires the Intel HD driver to function. The following is taken from the Dell 1521 page.

You need to blacklist the "snd-hda-intel" kernel module from being loaded automatically by appending it to /etc/hotplug/blacklist

Reboot.

Dell 1521

Introduction

If you want to install Ubuntu for this machine type we recommend you install the Lucid Lynx version 10.04, the 64Bit version functions as adequately as the 32Bit version, however apart from some slowness I noticed when using the browser the 64 bit seems just as good as that of the 32 bit version at least as far as I know. Lucid Lynx Version 10.04 is the LTS (Long Term Support) there are later version from Ubuntu, Linux Mint and others that may work but so far the only one I have found that the wireless works on 64 bit and 32 bit is Lucid Lynx.

Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro

A laptop with the following spec:

Distro Compatible Hardware

Strange as it seems the hardest area to get a Linux distribution to work from CD/DVD on given hardware, is not so much the never ending march for new Databus adapters, as it is to master Linux on Laptops. The hardware market for laptops or notebooks seem to change faster than for their Desktop PC equivalents, it is also true that the newer the Laptop/Notebook design the greater the degree of difficulty needed to accomplish a functional working system.

Local Area And Wide Area Networking

Non techies can be forgiven for getting very confused with regards to Networks the hardware used and it's configuration, most would want or believe the hardware should work form the CD it comes with. This however is not always the case, if it is a router modem you are after their is no need what so ever to use the CD provided by the ISP (Internet Service Provider) or that of the Router manufacturer. This is true of all routers whether you buy a router over the counter or if this is provided by your ISP.