From A110 Wiki

Contents 1 Disk space optimizations 1.1 Install as few software packages as possible 1.2 Debian-specific hints 1.2.1 localepurge 1.2.2 apt-get 1.2.3 deborphan 2 Speed optimizations 3 Window size optimizations 3.1 Firefox / Iceweasel 3.2 GIMP 3.3 kcontrol 3.4 .gtkrc-2.0 3.5 xterm 3.6 Battle for Wesnoth 3.7 General Tips

Disk space optimizations

Install as few software packages as possible

Debian-specific hints

localepurge

Install localepurge to purge lots of useless translation files and translated manpages.

$ apt-get install localepurge
$ localepurge

This can free quite a lot of space, up to hundreds of megabytes in some cases.

apt-get

• Run apt-get clean after installing new software.
• Run apt-get autoremove from time to time to purge no longer needed packages.
• Put the following into /etc/apt/apt.conf:

 APT:Install-Recommends "false";

This will install less (optional) software and save lots of disk space.

deborphan

Run dpkg --purge `deborphan` to remove obsolete library packages which are no longer required.

Speed optimizations

Before backing up or restoring, enable the 32-bit mode using hdparm:

$ hdparm -c2 /dev/hdc

The transfer rates raise from 2.9 MB/s to approx. 4-5 MB/s.

Window size optimizations

As the resolution of the A110 is quite low you might want to optimize some applications for better usability on a small screen.

Firefox / Iceweasel

• Disable View / Toolsbars / Bookmarks toolbar.
• View / Toolbars / Customize Toolbar:
  • Select Show: Icons only and Use small icons.
  • Remove the Google search box if you don't use it.
• Install the Compact Menu 2 add-on, restart Firefox, then use it in View / Toolbars / Customize.
• Move all remaining icons from the navigation toolbar into the menu toolbar, then remove the navigation toolbar completely.
• Also, you can make the menu fonts smaller by using the proper .gtkrc-2.0 file.
• Enter about:config in the URL field, then change browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 8 so that there's room for more tabs.
• Use the Glazoom add-on to quickly zoom out of web pages and view their whole contents without horizontal scroll bars.
• You can press the F11 key too, to switch to fullscreen mode. Works with many browsers and some Gnome Apps.

GIMP

• File / Preferences / Theme: Select Small.
• Do not "dock" any dialogs on the main gimp window.

kcontrol

The settings in kcontrol will affect all/most KDE applications.

• In Appearance & Themes / Fonts change all font sizes from 10 to 7 or even 6 (try for yourself what size you consider readable enough).
• In Appearance & Themes / Icons / Advanced change the icon size to 16 (the smallest) everywhere.

.gtkrc-2.0

For GTK+ 2.0 applications you can create a .gtkrc-2.0 file in your home directory to globally control e.g. font sizes:

$ cat .gtkrc-2.0
style "user-font" {
  font="-*-adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal-*-*-120-*-*-p-*-*"
}
widget_class "*" style "user-font"


gtk-font-name = "arial 7"

Change the 7 in the last line to your preferred font size.

xterm

Press CTRL and keep the right mouse button pressed, then select a new font size, e.g. tiny. The unreadable font size is, well... unreadable.

Battle for Wesnoth

Run Wesnoth as wesnoth-smallgui (instead of just wesnoth), which gives you a size-optimized UI. It works nicely for 800x480, for instance.

General Tips

It's very useful to know the key combinations for resizing, minimizing, moving windows in your favorite window manager. Sometimes certain buttons of a window will not be visible because the window is too big for the screen, etc.

• In general: Press Alt and the left mouse button to move a window. Release the left mouse button to stop moving the window.
• IceWM:
  • Moving a window: Press Alt+F7, move the window around (either with the mouse or cursor keys), then press Enter or left-klick to stop moving the window.