Ubuntu page

Enable the general menu on right click from the home screen. Open a terminal with:

• Alt-F2
• terminal + RET
• in the terminal type “xfce-setting-show”
• in the “Desktop” pane, click “Show desktop menu on right click”

Also, you may want to eliminate the dozens of foreign language support pre-loaded by default. Right click on the home window, choose System → Add/remove software then Languages and here deselect all but what you really need. I left only Italian, English and French and I recovered 270M of disk space …

I installed a number of software packages that are not present in the base distribution. All these installations can be performed with the software update/install tool accessible from the main menu (right click on the home window). In particular:

• open-ssh and open-ssh-client are needed to be able to connect to other machines
• xemacs or any other kind of emacs, in case you don't like vi …
• tetex to compile latex documents, it also installs xdvi and the companion programs
• eclipse in case you need to develop Java code
• make otherwise you'll not be able to install from source …

I also installed downloading the programs from the source page and then installing in a local directory

• firefox (version 3, from mozilla.com)
• thunderbird (version 2, from mozilla.com)
• jdk 1.6 (from Sun, this is the official Sun Java release)
• openoffice (version 3 from openoffice.org, this allows you to read Office XML files)

I tried a from scratch installation of Windows XP (service pack2) on the Acer Aspire One. After the base installation I downloaded an installed the specific drivers from the Acer web site. Windows works, but from time to time the computer freezes with the disk led blinking/constantly on. The freeze lasts for tens of seconds up to one minute. I disabled virtual memory and tried other solutions, without success. As is, this makes the computer useless. I also tried to install Windows on an external USB drive, without success.

The version provided is 2.3 and does not support the most recent XML Microsoft document versions. I installed version 3, in an alternative directory as follows:

* download the Linux version (OOo_3.0.00.LinuxIntel_install_wjRE_it.tar.gz)

• unpack it (got a OOO300_m9_native_packed-1_it.9358 directory)
• from this directory, run setup
• in the “opt” directory produced, there is an openoffice.org3/program directory
• in your preferred directory create a link to openoffice.org3/program/soffice
• double clicking the link you get open office 3 startup page

In order to be able to input some handwritten stuff, I use a Wacom tablet (a small Sapphire one). This tablet needs additional drivers. I'm still completing the configuration. It will be announced here soon.