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Posts in 2008 January 06
Before CES started (technically it starts tomorrow, but it might as well just start today considering the number of product announcements), I talked about a new UMPC from E-Lead that looked like it could improve on many of the problems with the Eee PC, but there were almost no details. Now, the details have arrived from Pocketables and the Noahpad website. Just from a quick glance at the details of this new Noahpad I can tell that E-Lead looked at all the problems with the Eee PC and tried to fix them. I say tried because I am skeptical about how well many of their solutions will work, but at least they tried.
One of the biggest complains about the Eee PC is the small keyboard. The Noahpad features two big trackpads that are also supposed to be able to mimic the feel of buttons. This is supposed to make typing easier because the keyboard is split into two parts (the two trackpads) so there is more space. In addition, the Noahpad can be opened all the way so that it looks like a tablet with the keys on the back and the screen on the front. In this configuration, a layover appears on the screen of the keys so that you can type even without looking at the keyboard. (This is really hard to explain, but this picture and this picture from the Pocketables website make it much easier to understand.)
Another frequent complaint about the Eee PC is the small screen. While the Noahpad has the same size screen (7″), they claim that their 7″ screen works like a 10″ screen. That sounds complicated, but the idea is really quite simple. On your 7″ screen, you see part of what you would see on a 10″ screen and you just scroll around with the over sized trackpads. Once again, this is hard to explain, so I am just going to quote from the Noahpad site:
“Noahpad UMPC uses the virtual screen technology to display portions of the standard 10¨ window on its 7¨ screen while maintaining the resolution of 1024X768 pixels. With the unique touchpad controller, users can easily move the window around on the screen, effectively expanding the viewing area from 7¨ to 10¨ .”
The Noahpad does not just attempt to fix problems with the Eee PC, though. The Noahpad is also designed to be able to preform the functions of a digital photo frame or car GPS navigation system. Unfortunately, the Noahpad does not have built-in GPS, so you need an external GPS reciever. In addition to all this, the Noahpad uses some sort of external battery to provide 10 hours of battery life.
The Noahpad certainly sounds cool, but it still remains to be seen if the features, such as the combination trackpad and keyboard, really work as they are supposed to. Also, there is no price point yet. Mobile Whack is claiming the price will be in the range of the Eee PC, but I can’t verify that. Still, this new UMPC certainly looks cool.
Now You Need a Linux PC Just to Keep the Viruses off your Windows PC
Urgent notice to all Windows users: Due to the security problems of Windows, you now need to purchase a Linux computer in order to keep the viruses and spyware off your existing Windows PC.
Yes, its true, a security company called Yoggie just announced a USB device that plugs into a Windows computer to keep it safe from viruses. The device, which looks like a big USB flash drive is really an entire computer that runs Linux. The idea is that you plug this thing in to your computer and its 13 applications will keep your computer safe without using up the resources of your current computer. The problem is, when an operating system gets to the point where you need another computer running a more secure operating system to keep the original computer from getting stuffed with viruses and spyware, it might be a good idea to think about just using that more secure operating system, in this case Linux.
Seriously, there has to come a point when Windows users are going to look at the resources they are throwing away and the viruses they are getting and say this is enough! At that point, Linux must be ready to provide an easy-to-use, secure, bloat-free desktop. Luckily, Linux already has all that.
Google’s GMail service has become very popular, but many people still want to do their e-mail on their computers. Switching from a webmail interface to an on-your-desktop email client has a number of advantages. For example, when you go somewhere where you can’t get on the internet you still have access to your e-mail. The problem has always been that
without paying an IMAP provider, your email on the web and on your computer would become out of sync. Now that GMail offers free IMAP, anyone can have their e-mail on their desktop and on the web and keep them both in sync. (If I read a message at gmail.com it appears as read on my desktop client, if I delete a message on gmail.com it gets deleted on my desktop client, etc.) The only problem is how to set this up. Google provides tutorials for many email clients, but Evolution, the default GNOME e-mail client, is not one of those. Here is how to configure Evolution to stay in sync with GMail:
Step 1) Turn on IMAP in GMail
Go to your GMail account
1) Click “Settings” in the top right
2) Click the “Forwarding and POP/IMAP” tab
3) Select “Enable IMAP” under IMAP Access
4) Click “Save Changes”
Step 2) Configure Evolution
To launch Evolution, go to Applications > Internet > Evolution Mail
Press forward.
Press forward.
1) Enter your full name – This is what will be seen by other people to whom you send
e-mails
2) Enter your full email address including the @gmail.com part
3) Press forward
1) From the Server Type list, select IMAP. This will cause the Configuration
section to be displayed.
2) For Server enter: imap.gmail.com
3) Enter your full email address including @gmail.com
4) Under Security, choose SSL encryption from the list
5) Authentication Type should be “Password” (checking the “Remember password” box saves entering your password every time Evolution receives mail from gmail)
6) Press forward
These are personal preferences. Choose whatever you want or just do what I did. Press forward.
1) Server Type: SMTP
2) Server: smtp.gmail.com
3) Check “Server requires authentication”
4) Use Secure Connection: SSL encryption
5) Authentication Type: Login
6) Authentication Username: your gmail username with the @gmail.com part (checking the “Remember password” box saves entering your password every time Evolution sends mail to gmail)
7) Press forward.
1) The account name is to tell this account from other accounts you have/might set up in Evolution, name it whatever you want
2) Press forward
Select your a city in your time zone by clicking on it on the map (1) or by selecting it from the drop down menu (2). Press forward.
Press apply.
Enter your password. Click OK. (No, that is not my real password. Count the dots, count the letters in ‘password’.)
Step 3) Congratulations!
If it works, congratulations! If not, you can contact me (webmaster@linuxloop.com or look for the contact link in the footer) for help or find a forum and ask for help there.
Setting up a dual- or multi- boot Linux system
Making your computer boot a number of operating systems can be a very simple or complex issue. If you just want to set up a dual boot with Ubuntu and Windows there are lots of guides to help you do that, and often you don’t even need to change any
settings. This guide is not about that, although there is no reason one of the partitions could not be Windows. Another thing you should know before using this guide, is that you can set up a virtual machine, where an operating system can run in
a window on your computer, and that is both a lot easier and safer.
OK, so if you still want to set up a dual or multi boot system, there is one more thing you should know. This guide will not give step by step instructions, but will rather explain what you need to do in general. For example, instead of saying something like “Select the grey box representing free space in the top of the window, and press new…” this tutorial will just say “You need to create a new partition and format it ext3.” If you think you need a more step by step tutorial, I recommend you ask for help on a forum, like LinuxQuestions.org. And one last thing, this tutorial will assume you are using an empty hard drive. I don’t recommend you do this for the first time on a hard drive you can’t just reformat and start over. I messed up more then once, and I still don’t even know what went wrong. Luckily, it was a blank hard drive, so I just started over.
Part 1: Format the Drive
Before you install anything, it is easiest to set up the partitions (pieces of your hard drive) in advance. To start out download and burn a live CD that allows you to partition your drive. I recommend the GParted live CD. This CD does partitioning, and just about nothing else, that’s what makes it great. When you have booted it up these are the partitions you need to make:
| Filesystem | Primary/Extended/Logical | Size | Use | Notes |
| swap | primary | Approx. twice your RAM or 1.5GB to 2GB on a modern computer |
Sort of like extra RAM. Generally a good idea on Linux systems. |
None. |
| ext3 | primary | Depends on what distro you want to install. For testing purposes I recommend 10-12GB for CD distributions and 15GB+ for DVD distributions. |
One of the distributions goes here. | None. |
| ext3 | primary | Depends on what distro you want to install. For testing purposes I recommend 10-12GB for CD distributions and 15GB+ for DVD distributions. |
One of the distributions goes here. | If you only ever need three distributions, make another of this type and then you are done. |
| N/A | extended | All avaliable space | Other partitions can go inside of this, but you can only have 4 primary/extended partition. Don’t ask me why. Go try and Google it or something if you must know. |
All following partitions go inside this partition. |
| ext3 | logical | Depends on what distro you want to install. For testing purposes I recommend 10-12GB for CD distributions and 15GB+ for DVD distributions. |
One of the distributions goes here. | Goes inside the extended partition.
Make as many of these as you need. |
You may want to make a logical fat32 (or ext3 if you only plan to have Linux on the computer you are working on) for data storage between operating systems.
Now, after you write the partitions to the disk (YOU WILL LOSE ALL YOUR DATA), you should see names such as /dev/sda1. (These names will vary from system to system depending on your hard drive.) Write these names down along with what partition they correspond to. At the very minimum you need to know the name of the partitions you want to put Linux on.
Also, if you mess up and want to restart, just put the CD back in the drive and delete all the partitions and make them again.
I hope that was clear, if not please contact me. (Link at the bottom of the page to a form or email me at webmaster@linuxloop.com.)
Part 2: Installing the main OS
To start out you need to install one “main” operating system. This is the only operating system you will allow to write the “Master Boot Record” (called the MBR from now on.) The MBR is a portion of your hard drive where your computer looks for a
“boot loader” to tell it where to go to boot an operating system. In this tutorial we will use GRUB. GRUB is a boot loader that comes with most Linux distributions by default.
I normally use Ubuntu, but any Linux that can install a GRUB boot loader (almost all of them) will work. The only thing you need to do differently is that you need to choose “Manual” (or “Custom” or something) when you get to the partitioning options.
Then you need to choose to install to the first of the ext3 partitions and choose mount point “/”. You can let it format it if you want. Choose ext3 or, if that is not an option ext2 (or whatever the distro prefers, it will not matter a lot).
Part 3: Installing other OSs
This is going to be the same as installing the main OS, except for two things. The first is that you don’t want to use the same partition, so just pick the next of the ext3 partitions each time, but still use the manual mode and stuff. The second difference is that you don’t want it to write GRUB to the MBR. This varies from distribution to distribution and on a few distributions, you can’t do it at all. Basically, make sure that at some point in the install process you will get a chance
to do one of the following:
- Best Choice: Install GRUB to the same partition that you installed the OS to. This will be phrased different ways, but if you have an option to write GRUB to the same partition you put the OS on, that is the best choice.
- Last Resort Choice: Don’t install any boot loader anywhere.
The only better thing then installing GRUB to the same partition, is installing it to the same partition AND adding the OS to the existing GRUB automatically.
OK, so you got something installed, now what to do next:
If you were able to install GRUB to the same partition as the OS:
Go back into your main OS, and open a terminal window. As root (or in Ubuntu just add sudo to the beginning) type gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst. If you use KDE you will need to use kedit or another text editor instead. Now, go to the bottom of the file
and add (on a new line):
title the name of the new OS
root (hd0,partition number)
chainloader +1
The name of the OS can be anything, but I recommend just using, for example, “Ubuntu 7.04.”
To get the correct partition number find the names of the partitions, that you wrote down. Take the number at the end of the name and subtract one. That should be it. For example, if the name of the partition was /dev/sda5, I would write “root
(hd0,4)”.
If you did not install a boot loader at all:
Go back into your main OS, and open a terminal window. As root (or in Ubuntu just add sudo to the beginning) type gedit /boot/grub/menu.lst. If you use KDE you will need to use kedit or another text editor instead. At the end of this file you need to
add some lines of text. In this case your best bet is to get someone who has the distro (both version and distro matter) installed normally to tell you what his/her entry(s) say.
I hope this works for you. If you need addition help, please contact me (webmaster@linuxloop.com) or look for a forum.