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That Unetbootin is really awesome. I was surprised how user friendly and easy it was. Thank you for the link. I’m creating the jump drive now. I had it set up in the one that I used for remix, but it seemed to think I still wanted the remix. I formatted the drive and redoing it now.
Hello Alfihar,
So sorry, I thought the name you were using was Resident Apple Fanboi. I just realized now that is part of your avatar. 🙂
Hey, that screen brightness adjustment at the boot screen worked GREAT. You rock. And yes, the volume control is very similar to the image you posted. You know it could just take a different driver. Something I’ve thought about today, but haven’t jumped into yet.
And as you suggested I did install the VLC player from Ubuntu’s Add/Remove. I remember now, and that is how the instructions on VLC’s website described the installation. You know this is the first time I’ve had someone tell me that it is better to install through the Add/Remove feature rather than going to the website to install a program. I’ve been doing a lot of head scratching wondering why I am not seeing many ways to install a program from a website. Now I know why. Thank you again for all your help and input.
You are the 2nd person in 2 days that has suggested Mint 7. I’ll have to go take a look at it. And I may just say see ya to this remix and go play with Ubuntu 9.04 or 8.04. I just thought maybe I should stick with the remix since it was designed for the netbook.
Thank you again for the help. (Downloading the iso for Mint now.)
Other than the battery life not being quite as long as I expected, I’m pretty happy with my N120. The thing is pretty darn cool. I haven’t loaded up photoshop and tried to do major stuff with it, but I didn’t purchase if for “major” stuff. It’s an awesome netbook.
Hello Fanboi,
I’ve installed the remix. I am not aware of how to adjust the brightness control before selecting the OS and I wasn’t aware their was a setting in the BIOS. I’ll check those out. Thank you for the pointers and direction on that.
Yeah, I though the volume issues were odd as well. The volume control in the upper right (thank you for being so specific by the way) was at 100%, but still barely audible. I’ll be honest I don’t know if I installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package? I’m so new to this that I look for and follow what ever clear step-by-step walk throughs I can find. I’ve fiddled and played and tried this and tried that so much I can’t remember what the heck I did. I did follow the instructions that VLC had for installing the VLC Player that were AWESOME. (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-ubuntu.html) They were very clear for a newbie like me. I believe I had trouble finding one of the files they suggested, but for the actual “how to do it” the instructions were the best I found yet when needing to do something in Ubuntu I’ve never done before.
When ubuntu was freezing I believe I was doing updates, and I was also working with mozilla firefox to get all of the addons I like to use.
I’ll poke around some more to see if I did get the Ubuntu-restricted-extras installed. I do remember installing flash, etc. but that could have been on my other laptop I was playing with a few days ago. I’ve been seriously tinkering with it for a couple of weeks now on my regular laptop and for the last 2 days on the N120. I’ve definitely put the most time into the N120. I’m looking forward to playing with it some more.
Thank you again for the suggestions and the specifics. So often I go into the ubuntu forums and read something like “just type sudo… yada yada yada” or “open up the terminal” but they don’t say anything where to type such and such or how to even open terminal. For the newest of newbies, these are things that need to be clear. I guess they just assume a certain level of familiarity already. I understand that. I just need to find a place that caters to what I call the “dumbest of dummies in ubuntu” so that I can go there and figure stuff out. 🙂
Hey Ballgame,
Like you I’m relatively new to Linux, but I’ve been anxious to check it out to try and start moving away from Microsoft. I started playing with Ubuntu earnestly a couple of months ago, and decided to actually set it up and use it on my N120. It’s been an eye opening experience since I am so used to windows.
It took a couple of tries installing and reinstalling from my jump drive, but I did finally get it installed and running smoothly. I was surprised that I did have it actually freeze up on me a couple of times. I thought freezing up and acting stupid was only a windows thing. I do think it’s working fairly well now, however I am glad I kept windows on the other partition. Ubuntu isn’t all that up to speed for watching movies.
My main reason for buying the N120 was to have something relatively small and compact, but bigger than a psp, to watch movies on when I’m on trip. While at the same time having something that will even do some basic computing tasks. That being said when I got Ubuntu installed I kept running into one problem after another when trying to watch a movie. I was glad I still had my windows to fall back on. I’ve done my share of windows bashing, but for sitting down to watch a movie Ubuntu is lacking. I spent all day working with Ubuntu yesterday. I started working around noon and was still tinkering at midnight. And this was after I actually had it installed. All I was doing yesterday was trying to get the video and sound to work somewhat decently.
If you don’t plan on watching movies it looks like the Ubuntu will do the trick and be fun to play with. If you are going to watch movies, be ready to spend lots of time trying to install different applications. With windows I simply plug my external hard drive in, open it up, click on the movie shortcut and the whole movie plays with the sound being fine. With Ubuntu and VLC installed I plug in my external hard drive, start VLC, explore the external hard drive, and then open the directory with the movie files installed to play the movie (it plays the movie automatically if you just open the directory). Then I have to toggle to the settings panel to adjust the volume with the various tools it has so I can actually hear the movie. Then I can toggle back to the movie to continue watching it. Keep in mind, every time you go to watch a movie you have to do all of this. I thought I could go into preferences to save the volume settings, but it wouldn’t take. I can’t imagine any sane person choosing to go through all of these steps when they can log into windows and have it go much smoother. My wife’s jaw dropped when I showed her what she would need to do to watch a movie on Ubuntu. I just smiled and told her I left windows installed and I’ve reconfigured the boot menu to default to windows instead of Ubuntu.
I do plan on continuing to play with Ubuntu, but for the purpose I bought the N120 for Ubuntu doesn’t look like it’s going to cut it.
As foodle mentioned, brightness didn’t work at all for me. I could barely see anything on the screen. I happened to be playing around and when I went into windows, adjusted the brightness, and then rebooted into Ubuntu the brightness setting carried over. Not the best workaround, but it did work. 🙂
I do think Ubuntu is worth playing with, just be sure you have lots of time on your hands. There is a learning curve involved. It’s probably a much bigger curve with me than for others, but it’s still there.
I’ve had my N120 for a little over a week and I’ve been testing the battery. I’ve not gotten much more than 5 hours yet while watching movies saved on an external hard drive. I don’t think I’ve ever reached the 6 hour mark. I would have liked to see closer to 7 hours even though some places are saying it will last 8 to 10 hours. I figured that wouldn’t be the case, but was surprised when it was less than 6. I’ll try turning off the bluetooth and see what happens. I’m continuing to test, but I am leaning now to getting the aftermarket 9 cell battery. Maybe then I can get around 7 hours out of it. Still, 5 isn’t bad. Just was expecting better.
