BOP LUG

Quote from my last blog entry

ISSUE #1 - the system broke ...

[QUOTE] the system broke and failed to start after installing only a few packages with automatix. [END QUOTE] I was wrong

Today, I discovered there was no fault with the installed packages, Ubuntu 7.10 (except the hard disk cycling issue) or with automatix and I backtrack and apolagise to all readers that may have been put off purchasing this laptop because of my comments, and I apolagise to Acer for any possible lost sales. Let me explain my latest findings in fuller detail.

After I removed Ubuntu 7.10 and installed Ubuntu 8.04 with Long Term Support and the "unsupported" drivers, I put the system aside for a few days and went back to it today. After installing a few extra packages, blacklisting the unsupported wireless driver and installing ndiswrapper and the windows wireless driver, I restarted the laptop only to find it broke, just like the first one that broke after performing updates and restarting when it was running 7.10. The odd thing was, I had not been using automatix and the packages I installed were vastly different to the ones I was installing with 7.10.

That was enough to sound the alarm bells that there was something else wrong and I had to get to the bottom of it. My attention was diverted and I had to take my USB Wireless mouse to another notebook and operate on that for the next 2 hours. On my return, I powered up the Acer but had forgotten to insert the Ubuntu CD and had not plugged in my wireless mouse. Low and behold, it started, so I plugged in my wireless mouse and went about merrily connecting to a wireless network and browsing the net. Suspecting the mouse, I restarted the Acer and sure enough, it failed to start. Unplugged the mouse, hard shut-down, powered up and all was well. That's it I thought, it's my wireless mouse. Time to try a wired mouse, same issue, try a different brand wired mouse, same issue.

At this point, I phoned Dove and informed them. Dove Electronics are very good suppliers to the trade and their Acer Product Manager is now on the case, reporting this to Acer. I have a suspicion that this may result in a BIOS upgrade and I sincerely hope that this issue will be sorted very quickly. The challenge for Acer is, if there is to be a bios update applied, how is one to do this when running Linux?

ISSUE #2 - DVD playback

[QUOTE]we tried a classical music DVD without encryption and found the display too jerky to be classified as watchable[END_QUOTE]

After installing Ubuntu 8.04 and the drivers, I tried the same DVD and it played perfectly well. Once again, I have to backtrack and apolagise as before.

This blog entry has been done solely for the purpose of providing all viewers with an accurate and honest description of my new findings so as to balance out some of the negatives I posted in my earlier post.

In light of this new information, when the booting issue is sorted out, I would give this notebook a 7.5 out of 10. If the Audio volume and microphone could be improved, 56K modem made to work, a DVD writer provided and a Linux Distro installed that does not have a hard disk cycling issue plus a recovery CD or DVD, this notebook would have scored much higher.

As for any prospective purchasers, I would have no hesitation suggesting this notebook as a very good beginners system.

Mike P