Contents 1 best distro ?? 2 One A450 3 Customer support mail 4 2.6.22 5 Ideas for a good distro? 5.1 Moving /home/* to SD-card 5.2 c't magazine prints link to a110wiki.de 6 What about moblin.org for one A110? 7 Shorten the boot time 8 I Have A Dream 9 xPUD 10 Deep Blue H1 11 Easy Peasy 12 motivation

best distro ??

to be frank,

• xPUD is the REAL THING - fast & soon full hw support

• preinstalled ubuntu sucks for slowness, albeit here the modem is confirmedly working, although fax is not
• sidux ist fast and up-to-date with all harware working (modem in progress), nice persisten sticks
• linpus from KAIRIS 100 is unconfirmed on A110
• pentoo live CD / Stick supports native screen-size (not yet working) and PADLOCK key cracking - a strong contender
• ubu netbook remix has lots a issues and there is no A110 binary image
• the eee-pc distro ? who knows ?
• easy peasy - see also at bottom of page - no A110 drivers out of the box, just W+LAN (no VGA, no modem, no audio), also slow response. wlan seems to connect but does not route here. live-usb-stick is quite slow. is "peasy" easy to remaster ?
• USBoot WinXP on 2 GB stick, 750 MB free - all Hardware working - I always keep one mini-stick ready. also poss. to install to SSD

so I go for sidux !! what do you think ?

I use Puppy Linux 4 with a self-compiled kernel. Apart from 3D acceleration, everything works fine, I have padlock, the via driver and the sd-slot working just fine. I also have installed a full-blown devel-environment for python 2.5, ruby 1.8, c/c++, gtk development and more. I use svn and git on it and have OpenOffice, VirtualBox and the WICD network manager up and runnning, while still having 1.2GB left to work with. The system is small and snappy. --Timfelgentreff 15:51, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

One A450

did anyone try out the new Ubuntu 2GB stick release by one.de on the A110 ? the VIA nano CPU is socket-compatible with the C7, so maybe we'll see some upgrade soon ? just replacing a chip should be simple. --franka 18:42, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be right to create a page about the One A450? http://www.one.de/shop/product_info.php?cPath=131&products_id=2721 --Timo 20:05, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Nope, probably not, as the wiki is intended to collect information about the A110 and various other Quanta IL1 reference design clones. It appears that the A450 is not such a clone (but please let us know if you have information that it is indeed an IL1 clone), thus it's not in the scope of the wiki. The A120 and A150, however, are definately IL1 clones and are thus relevant. --Uwe Hermann 18:22, 5 July 2008 (UTC)

Customer support mail

I've received a mail from One stating that 13% of the A110's got a preliminary version of the OS. WLAN would not be working properly on those devices. Buyers with one of the affected notebooks would receive an USB stick with patches in the next few days. I wonder

• why they've sent this email to all users, not only the affected 13% of users.
• why there are no reports about working WPA/WEP in the forums. Only the affected 13% of users seem to be active in the forums.
• why they didn't mention the other problems (screen resolution, SDcard-Reader).

Let's see what the stick will patch. Perhaps it's more than just a WLAN patch. -- JeLuF 18:10, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

according the kernel sources, IL1 support is just being integrated and WPA/WEP should work soon softwarily. of course it is nicer to have it working at date of shipment. but then you get a free stick as well.  ;-) --Franka 23:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

2.6.22

• Some if not most of the drivers seem to be made for the 2.6.22 kernel. I know by now that the wlan driver (source) from one works with ubuntu 7.10. You will have trouble booting after installation but all you need todo is to add ide-generic to the initrd. I wonder if it would be possible to build the drivers on a ubuntu 7.10 and copy over the kernel etc to ubuntu 8.04 and then blacklist kernel updates. I will try that tomorrow then will report back. Oh btw, anyone interested in creating a irc channel or somethin like that. Its better to work something out in "realtime" :) Well, i see it that way, pay 199 euros thats cheaper than the eee already. But get to learn something, now thats priceless! Think positive!
  • Well, you want to try Ubuntu and upgrade it? I dont think it's possible to keep the old drivers with a new kernel. So I could imagine you'll come into big trouble. -- Helmar Wodtke 22:20, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I'll use another approach, namely running the latest 2.6.25 kernel (on Debian unstable, as I'm a Debian developer) and checking what works there already (or not). I've looked at the 2.6.22 diffs a bit and some of the changes there are already included in later kernel versions. Maybe it's not too much work after all when using recent kernels, we'll see. --Uwe Hermann 22:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • No, i want to use the ubuntu 7.10 kernel in 8.04. Imma compile all the drivers in 7.10 then copy the Kernel, initrd and modules to 8.04 --Mryoung 22:29, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • By the way, I have "set up" the IRC channel #a110 on Freenode, feel free to join. --Uwe Hermann 22:40, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Ideas for a good distro?

Well, as far as I see available sources now, I think that the kernel version will be 2.6.22.xx? At least until VIA will do something to get their hardware supported by actual Linux kernels and actual Xorg. What is a good distro for now? I personally like Sidux and have some old experiences with Gentoo and a hand full of other distributions since mid 1990s (starting with Slackware and a 1.x kernel). I'm currently near to try a Slackware, since it has a nice availability of older versions (it's not that moving like Sidux, that will of course kick out old hardware if a new kernel does not support it anymore). The pre-installed Ubuntu does not look nice to me. There are too many problems imho (not only with drivers, it's simply not made for this kind of device). -- Helmar Wodtke 22:14, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

Well, i assume you mean the windows that doesnt fit to the resolution. Apart from using ALT+LMouseButton to move the window out of boundaries we should be able to get rid of the resolution problem by tweaking gnome. Also we could use Linux Mint. I also love gentoo. But alot of handwork has to be done and i dont know if you can easily get some automatism for the setup process. Also compiling stuff hours long on the VIA C7-M should be a pain. --Mryoung 22:27, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

• I was thinking to install something in a Qemu with a 2G image on my desktop system and transfer this to the A110. I could also try to install something on an USB drive or inside a chroot environment. I dont think there are C7-optimizations needed for first. I'd like to have something working first ;) Helmar Wodtke 22:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • I actually prepared an image that way - one week prior to the actual shipment - and it worked quite good. What I learned during the preparations was that it's a whole lot easier to assign at least 8GB hdd space to the virtual machine. That way, I could install everything I wanted to have on the system (resulting in more than 3GB of data) and then compress the /usr directory using this guide. The resulting image needed roughly 1.5GB for Ubuntu + OpenOffice + Apache/PHP/MySQL + OpenJRE/Netbeans/Eclipse + various smaller apps and tools. Rainer 09:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

a real good distro should satisfy security nuts and use java padlock cpu features and all that stuff.

• Got no troubles with that, i got 3 of these babies standing here waiting to get fueled up. Hey Helmar, any chance getting in realtime contact with you ? What i meant was, if we work something out, others should be able to profit in a kinda easy way of that :P --Mryoung 22:37, 30 May 2008 (UTC)
  • Try helmwo(a)gmail:com chat.

• too bad there is no long mode, so MENUET-OS64 dont work, just DOS and MENUET-32. Aalternatively, Puppy Linux is adapted to 640x480 screens quite well (but not perfectly) --Franka 23:33, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

The original A110 promo page featured pictures of the commercial "Linpus Linux Lite" instead of the actual pre-installed ubuntu. Sadly enough, only the Live-CD (without an option for installation) is publicly available from the linpus website (http://www.linpus.com/xampp/modules/mydownloads/viewcat.php?cid=13). Yet, if you liked the Live-CD and care to give the OS a "real" run, you might want to check out their ftp-server (ftp://anonymous@ftp.linpus.com). If you browse to "/support/DVD/", you will find an ISO-Image named "lp.Lite.Generic.install.1.1.0.200801041220.iso" (732.913.664 Bytes) containing the actual Linpus Linux Lite 9.4 Install-CD. This CD-Image contains a live-option as well. [mattz]

My Version of Netbook Remix for the A110: http://a110wiki.de/wiki/User:El.x.jtr0 - El.x.Jtr0

Moving /home/* to SD-card

I'm trying to follow [1] to move /home/ to the SD card, but always land at a frozen system when trying to copy. I would propose to add a chapter about moving the home folders.

c't magazine prints link to a110wiki.de

latest c't mag (Germany) has an article on the A110 and a link to this wiki. The details in the article are mostly known. --franka 07:06, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

• • modem source found for hda bus daa 11c1:1040 - maybe it works soon on Quanta IL1 ! --franka 17:27, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

What about moblin.org for one A110?

Shorten the boot time

I wonder if the moblin project was a good startingpoint to create an own "distribution" for our IL1-brother. The most important thing to me is the time from power on to desktop, ready to work. Ubuntus boot time is to much to me! I could live with it, if suspend to RAM would work. In my opinion a portable device like these "Netbooks" must have a "instant on" like behavior. It makes no sense to wait one and a half minute from power on to desktop. A time of let's say 25 seconds would be okay. Shorter is better.

What do you think about? Can we adopt moblin? Can we make an own kernel for the one A110, including all needed modules? Can we shorten the boot up so, that suspend is not necessary in the sense of instant on? I'm curious about your answers. --Sven 10:42, 17 October 2008 (UTC)

 * An interesting link to informations about Linux boot time: http://elinux.org/Boot_Time

--Sven 20:44, 9 May 2009 (UTC) Wouldn't it be an option to use (Micro-)Knoppix 6's bootsystem? We would get a debian lenny system with a short boot time.

 * Klaus Knopper about the new Microknoppix (german only) http://chemnitzer.linux-tage.de/2009/vortraege/detail.html?idx=152

There you can listen to an audio file of his lecture.

I Have A Dream

I dream of a minimalistic operating system. It needs to consists of the absolutely necessary parts of Linux kernel and services at runtime plus usefull software. It must have the following things:

• very small footprint (on internal SSD)
• Bootloader
• Linux kernel
• kernel modules for One A110's hardware
• very short boot time, so that you can forget suspend to anything
• usefull powersave mechanism
• bluetooth
• wireless lan
• 3G connection (via bluetooth and/or usb)
• X11 Xorg using the best available driver
• filemanager
• webbrowser (with a good javascript engine, possibly Opera?)
• email client or webbased email usage (would be included in Opera)
• simple text-editor
• picture viewer
• digital photo manager (with support of current digital cameras)
• pdf viewer
• audio/multimedia player
• flashplayer
• GPS connection and matching software
• optional dvb-t/s receiver software
• optional office software like OpenOffice.org
• optional printing support via CUPS
• optional SMB support to connect to Windows shares

What should be the purpose of such a system? Well, isn't it the same thing you're are dreaming of? A reliable system that meets the most important needs, when you're mobile. You're invited to complete the above feature list. Sven 22:29, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

The best thing I have in mind might be Ubuntu Jaunty with an LXDE-Desktop and Cardreader-Patch in April. If a very small footprint is needed, maybe this http://www.angstrom-distribution.org/ would be a Idea? There is a qemux86 build avaible. I think, a custom Kernel is needed, but I have no Idea how to connect this Puzzle Pieces (Bootloader, Kernel, qemux86-Filesystem etc.) to have a bootable System. (El.x.Jtr0)

well, your dream is in the making: MenuetOS-64. only problem: who is going to program all those drivers ?

--Sven 23:43, 17 April 2010 (UTC) Some month ago i was testing the MenuetOS. I would say "Hut ab!". ;-) It remembers me to my AMIGA times, because it fit's on a single floppydisk. I do not know if one could port it to i386 and the VIA chipset of our A110.

Yesterday I was running Android-x86 on the A110 of my wife. Okay, the resolution of 800x480 doesn't work (out of the box). You can get it here: http://www.android-x86.org/download Of course, Android is not a classic Linux distribution. But it has whole lot of potential on a device like our A110 and his brothers. What do you think?

xPUD

--Sven 21:28, 9 December 2009 (UTC)

We get my dream a little closer. :-) Just use http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/ to put the latest http://www.xpud.org/ ISO to an USB flash drive and boot your A11x or any Computer with it. Awesome!  :-)

Deep Blue H1

This is a umpc sold in the Philippines and is based on Quanta IL1 specs too. Difference from A110 is that it has a webcam, 1Gb RAM and 40Gb Toshiba harddisk and runs Linpus Linux lite. --clintcan

Nice, thanks! I've added this laptop to our main page and Hardware Comparison. Feel free to add more info as needed. --Uwe Hermann 16:18, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Easy Peasy

An article on heise.de announces a new Ubuntu Netbook Remix based distro called Easy Peasy that packs many netbook specific hardware drivers. According to the article, it comes with a live image that can start directly from a USB pen drive. If I find the time tonight, I will try to find out if it works with the hardware in my A110. --Bernhard Münzer 15:16, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

I got the live image to start from a USB drive, but - just as Franka experienced - it proved to be very slow I could not get it to connect to the internet via WLAN. Thus, I decided not to invest any more time into testing that distro.

--Bernhard Münzer 11:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

motivation

even though I have plenty of multicore hardware 'n stuff, only the A110 gives me THE SPECIAL FEELING. I used to own a SINCLAIR ZX Spectrum 48K. Whenever I power up the A110 its like "da war es wieder, das BASIC Gefühl" (quoted from "Chip Generation"). Its a reminiscence to that age of the "8bit home computer" - both have black cases btw.