Hailing Ubuntu 8.10 Intrepid Ibex (and the Eee PC 701)

(Updated: new steps needed for wireless on Eee PC)

Each release of Ubuntu just gets more and more, well, grown-up.  When I started using Ubuntu on the desktop, it was a brave man who would upgrade when a new release became available rather than install from scratch (and keep your fingers crossed with drivers.)  But things have improved significantly – even on hardware which is new and typically less well supported (see my Eee PC 701 setup guide later in this article.)

Things I like about Intrepid over previous versions:

1. Network Manager just seems to work.  The OpenVPN support just works.  It all just feels less flaky.  And when I plug my mobile phone in, it took about 10 seconds to setup a 3G connection through it.  All very plug-and-play.
2. Fonts: System > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts > Subpixel smoothing (LCDs) looks nicer than ever before.
3. The combination of Nautilus’s Tree organiser and it’s new Compact View really makes this a usable file manager.  At last.
4. Dual screen support seems much improved.  Two machines which I had trouble with in the past (one with an NVidea card) now work with a second monitor without having to wrestle with the xorg.conf.  What I’ll do with those cold winter evenings now, I don’t know.

One of my laptops is an Asus Eee PC 701.  Under Gutsy and Hardy, a number of tweaks were essential to get basic functions to work (wireless and sound in particular).  With the impending release of Intrepid, things go much more smoothly, and while a few tweaks are necessary, it’s almost plain-sailing.

Here are the steps I have taken to install Intrepid on my Eee PC 701:

1. Download the ISO and install from USB (using the ub8convert2.exe tool)
2. Get wireless working. Go to System > Administration > Hardware Drivers and deactivate the Atheros driver and reboot.  UPDATE! If that doesn’t work, it’s because the ath5k driver has been removed from Intrepid (on 28 October) – by the time you read this, it may be back.  If not, visit this bug report and you have the steps necessary to get back online.
3. Get up-to-date (especially as this is a beta currently.)  Keep an eye out for the update-manager icon in the top right of your panel and take suggested upgrades.  It may well suggest a “Partial Distribution Upgrade” as this is a pre-release version. Do it.
4. Shutdown doesn’t power-off.  To fix, add the following line to the end of the /etc/default/halt script:

rmmod snd-hda-intel

5. Sound doesn’t work out of the box.  To fix, create a new file (or append to the existing file) /etc/modprobe.d/snd-hda-intel:

options snd_hda_intel power_save=10 power_save_controller=Y

6. Turn on the microphone. Right click the volume icon (top-right) and choose Open Volume Control.  Then raise the e-mic control to the top.
7. Use the Riceeey script to achieve the following. You’ll need to edit the script down to size just to achieve this.  I haven’t tested whether the “overclocking” (which is really a “don’t underclock”) feature works.
   • allow windows to be moved above the top of the screen (by holding Alt while dragging)
   • set toolbar style to just show icons and set fonts to size 8 (to give you more space)
   • set Alt-F11 as the key for running apps full-screen
8. Get the hotkeys working:
   

wget http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~elmurato/901/Ubuntu_ACPI_scripts-EeePC_901_1000.tar.gz
or
http://www.informatik.uni-bremen.de/~elmurato/EeePC/Ubuntu_ACPI_scripts-EeePC_900A_901_1000.tar.gz
tar -xfvz Ubuntu_ACPI_scripts-EeePC_901_1000.tar.gz
cd Ubuntu_ACPI_scripts-EeePC_901_1000/
chmod +x install.sh
sudo ./install.sh

Good luck – do tell me how you get on.  Thanks to devgru and Psychocats.