Upgrading to Fedora 17 - using yum

Since my experience with preupgrade on the desktop was not so great, I decided to take a chance with upgrading my Lenovo S10-3 netbook to fedora 17 using yum.

The additional steps of modifying the filesystem using dracut were not really complex.

Most of the packages had already been downloaded by preupdate, which I had preserved. I copied them into the cache of  yum and executed:

# yum --releasever=17 --disableplugin=presto distro-sync

Unfortunately, after updating about 500 packages, yum seemed to be doing nothing. I killed the command. And ran yum-complete-transaction. It seemed to be using the repositories of Fedora 16 even though fedora-release files had been installed. So, I ran

# yum-complete-transaction --releasever=17

After a pretty long time, it told me that there were problems. I tried again with

# yum-complete-transaction --releasever=17 --skip-broken

An equally long wait and no better result. The problem was that rpm database had entries for both 16 and 17 versions for the packages which were updated.

The following command also did not help (Next time, I need to try with  the -t option to see if it would have tolerated errors).

# package-cleanup --cleandupes

The problem was that packages which had not yet been updated depended on the duplicates. Had I allowed this script to run, it would have deleted most of the packages.

I found a python script I had written when an upgrade from FC7 had failed because of power failure. The script created a file with the list of older duplicates, which could be used as an input to rpm as below:

# rpm --nodeps -e `cat deleteList.txt`

Finally, I cleaned up the failed yum transaction and ran:

# yum --releasever=17 --disableplugin=presto distro-sync

This time, the upgrade finished cleanly. Although it took about the same time and effort as the preupgrade, I enjoyed solving these problems a bit more.

Firefox crashes

As on the desktop, firefox crashed with even a few tabs. It seemed to be a random problem. However, I downloaded Firefox 12 from Mozilla and firefox works fine!

Goofing up with Miro - could the UI be smarter?

I have been using Miro for several years. So, it isn't that I was unfamiliar with the user interface. However, I am still bewildered that how did I remove all the TED videos I had downloaded instead of deleting the one sentimental video I intended to delete.

A major part of the problem was the poor response of Miro on the netbook. I had clicked the delete option on the video as it was playing. It did not seem to have worked. I deleted it from the video list and clicked on a menu option to confirm deletion. I clicked on the form several times as it did not seem to respond. I clicked multiple times because on the netbook, I often needed to click twice for Miro to queue my download request.

Since nothing seemed to be happening, I suspect that I must have clicked on remove podcast option absentmindedly. I am hoping that I had clicked on a confirmation screen after I clicked on remove podcast. It would have been a very unfortunate programming issue if one of my earlier clicks had been taken as a confirmation for the deletion of the podcast!

This is, obviously, nothing more than a minor 'disaster' or, more precisely, an irritation. It does raise the issue of how does the software UI behave in a sluggish environment. Can we code UI in such a way that the intentions of the user and their interpretation is not distorted by performance issues of the application?

We also need a better alternative to the confirmation screen. I doubt if anyone reads the confirmation screen before clicking after the first few times. So, how about a confirmation screen after the event with an UNDO button instead of an OK?

Lenovo Wifi behaviour still magical

The behaviour of the wifi on the Lenovo S10-3 continues to puzzle me. It continues to be magical and that feels uncomfortable. The magic is that I need to make the netbook sleep (Fn+F1) and then press the power button. Usually, the wifi will work. Occasionally, I need to repeat these steps.

This worked on Ubuntu netbook edition. It worked on Meego and Arch Linux. But I just haven't been able to get this magic to work on Smeegol from Suse.

There must be a difference. Looking at the logs, I found that if ACPI has an exception on waking from sleep state S3, bluetooth is recognised and wifi starts to work. The following extract from Ubuntu log file is indicative of each os.

Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  690.604909] Initializing CPU#1
Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  690.729043] CPU1 is up
Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  690.729260] ACPI: Waking up from system sleep state S3
Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  696.684074] ACPI Exception: AE_TIME, Returned by Handler for [EmbeddedControl] (20100428/evregion-474)
Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  696.684099] ACPI Error (psparse-0537): Method parse/execution failed [\_SB_.PCI0.LPCB.EC0_.DSSV] (Node f7023f78), AE_TIME
Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  696.684174] ACPI Error (psparse-0537): Method parse/execution failed [\_WAK] (Node f7023030), AE_TIME
Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  696.684370] ACPI Exception: AE_TIME, During Method _WAK (20100428/hwsleep-601)
Oct 27 14:55:36 anil-laptop kernel: [  696.719069] PM: early resume of devices complete after 1.912 msecs

However, on Suse's Smeegol, I just could not get it to show this exception.

On Ubuntu, the system wakes up whether the power button is pressed or sleep hotkey (Fn+F1) is pressed again. However, if the power button is pressed, the ACPI exception will normally show up and wifi works. But if the sleep hotkey is pressed, the exception rarely occurs and wifi does not work.

The next step would be to try the lenovo-laptop driver and hope that the wireless hotkey works and I do not need the above magic any more.

Netbook Suspend and Resume

While searching for something I did not find, I came across Canonical voices page and an explanation of how suspend and resume work in Linux.

The sleep key  "is bounced back out to userspace via /proc/acpi/events (currently, though it's going to be moved to the input layer in future) and userspace gets to choose what happens next.

Let's concentrate on the common scenario, which is that someone hitting the sleep button wants to suspend to RAM. Via some abstraction (either acpid, gnome-power-manager or kpowersave or something), userspace makes that decision and initiates the suspend to RAM process by either calling a suspend script directly or bouncing via HAL." (http://www.advogato.org/article/913.html)

Hence, it is possible that a different window manager on the same hardware may behave differently. And, of course, the behaviour on different distributions can be different.

I also came across a presentation on how notebook's lid and special buttons work which gives an insight into how the hardware generates the general purpose events.

On Lenovo S10-3, the sleep key (Fn+F1) worked on each on the os's. However, the lid works perfectly well with Ubuntu, MeeGo and Smeegol but doesn't with Arch Linux even though laptop-mode tools, acpid are installed. On Ubuntu 10.10 using gdm, if I start kde, even (Fn+F1) does not work!

Thanks to the above information, I can start my hunt for why and, perhaps, a consistent solution for S10-3 no matter what the distribution or the window manager.

Experimenting with Lenovo S10-3 - Smeegol

I downloaded the x64 version of the iso file. It worked without a hitch and I could install the Suse's version of MeeGo on the S10-3. Unlike the 'official' MeeGo, this version has the full Suse repository available and applications like OpenOffice are already installed.

It uses gdm instead of directly using uxlaunch. The X server in this case is owned by root and not the user as in the case of MeeGo. However, this also implies that it is multiuser unlike MeeGo at present.

It is an attractive and a nice alternative to the Ubuntu Netbook and the KDE netbook workspace.

The wifi issue continues to trouble me. LED is still off and I need to suspend the os (Fn+F1) and bring it back to life before it will recognise the existence of Bluetooth and enable wifi to work. Unfortunately, so far, with Smeegol, it does not recognise Bluetooth in spite of multiple attempts at suspending and resuming the system. I need to dig deeper and try to understand what is happening or supposed to happen upon resumption.

The other irritant on Smeegol so far - if I accidentally press the power button(and I seem to do that often while moving the netbook), a message is displayed that it will power-off after 30 seconds. However, it seems more like 3 seconds!

Figuring out how these buttons actually work along with the configuration files and code relating to them is one of the many pending items on my list of items I want to understand:(

Mint introduces a rolling option!

I haven't tried Mint. But it was a pleasant surprise to read that Mint will have a rolling distribution based on Debian testing repository. I have been convinced for some time that we should not have to change our OS - ever(at least for a long-long time). I was reminded of it by a blog entry about Windows vs Ubuntu release cycle.

I have been very happy with Arch Linux since Jan 2010. I haven't switched all my home systems because the range of applications available in Fedora repositories is considerably greater. I suppose I could use the rawhide repositories and that would be like a rolling distribution. However, the risk of the system breaking with that option is likely to be very high.

I am planning to use Arch Linux as the primary version on Lenovo S10-3 netbook using KDE's netbook style as the needs are well defined. The initial setup effort is worth the smoother subsequent operation.

I am not opting for Arch Linux because it is 'faster'. I do not know if that is even correct.

Nor am I doing so to have a fine control over the packages installed.

I am opting for it to so that I do not have to decide when to upgrade!

KDE 4.5 on Lenovo S10-3

Kubuntu 10.10 beta does not have a separate netbook edition. Instead the plasma workspace type can be changed to Netbook.

I could not boot with the Kubuntu 10.10beta livecd on Lenovo S10-3. Fortunately, this bug was reproducible and will hopefully be resolved soon.

One of my desires was to learn the setup of netbooks in more detail. A great way of doing that is to use Arch Linux. It is currently using 2.6.35 kernel and KDE4.5.

Since I wanted to have a reasonable but not too fine a control over what I installed, I decided to follow the route of kde-meta packages. The available meta-packages were obtained using
# pacman -Sg kde-meta

I decided to install kde-meta-kdebase, kde-meta-kdeutilities, kde-meta-kdenetworking and kde-meta-kdemultimedia.

The first problem I encountered was pretty simple. X wouldn't start. It turned out that xorg package had to be installed separately.

Next, I installed intel driver for X.

Working with the mousepad was a problem - it was very jerky and sensitive. It took a while to realise that touchpad has a separate driver. I needed to install xf86-input-synaptics package. It was a great relief being able to work with the mousepad without going crazy.

I changed the workspace type to Netbook in the settings and I had the new look.

While it will take time to get used to it. The main page starts with the search and launch options. Most likely it is the usual kde4 menu but with a very different look and feel. One can search for an application or select it from application groups.

Once the application is started, the top bar is hidden. The entire screen is taken up by the application. I prefer this approach. It reminds me of the reason why one commentator had praised dedicated eBook readers - There are no distractions. On the desktop, while watching a youtube or similar video, I frequently find myself making use of the extra space to start a game of solitaire!

It is going to be enjoyable exploring it and getting used to it. At my age, learning something new is a necessity :)

New Ubuntu Netbook Interface

Next step was to try the newly released 10.10 beta with a new look netbook edition. I updated the Ubuntu netbook installation. All went well, except that it would not boot with the 2.6.35 kernel used on 10.10 beta :(

Fortunately, the 2.6.32 kernel from the 10.04 version was still available and I could use that to boot and work.

The new look is indeed quite different. There is still an activity bar on top. In addition commonly used applications are available as icons in a vertical bar on the left.

Menus seems to be giving way or, at least, co-existing with search tools. A search tool is available for searching for files and applications for selecting a task to start.

There is also an applications icon in the vertical bar. It will display applications on a full screen. Grouping application in tabbed pages and a search option makes it is very nice to use.

The vertical bar of icons is quite flexible. When an application is started, the icon in the bar changes if it was already there. Otherwise the icon of the activated application is added to the bar. Both the vertical and horizontal bars are always visible. This is a trade-off between convenience of information about the system available at a glance and the desire to have as much space available for the application as possible.

Switching between applications is, thus, a single mouse click. However, it often took me time to find the icon of the application to which I wanted to switch.

I realise that the new netbook edition is a work in process. But I am inclined to favour the MeeGo or the KDE Netbook workspace approach. Hiding everything else helps one focus on the current task with minimal distraction.

Update: Booting Ubuntu 10.10 with 2.6.35-22 kernel now works by appending "intel_idle.max_cstate=0" to kernel parameter. For more details https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/634702

Experiments with Lenovo S10-3

I finally gave up waiting for a tablet and decided to get a new netbook even though at over 2 kg, it is considerably heavier than the 1KG eepc701 I used. The eepc 701 now though was too limiting.

The first thing I tried was the Ubuntu 10.04 netbook edition. The interface was same as the 9.10 I had used on eepc.

Since it has 150 gb of disk space, I installed MeeGo 1.0 as well. I like the ui of MeeGo but it did not support the Reliance USB modem. Huawei modem is still detected as a mass storage device on MeeGo though the next release may have a fix.

The broadcom wireless driver had to be built and installed. The instructions were straightforward and worked well.

Various options are available as tabs in a horizontal bar on the top of the screen. This is different from the way the bar is typically used. If an application is started, the bar disappears until the mouse is pushed to the top.

Applications available in the repository are fairly limited. However, Fedora will soon have a MeeGo spin. I will probably use it more only then.

KDE 4 plasma workspace has a Netbook option. So, I installed Kubuntu netbook edition. It uses the entire screen for an application. Pushing the mouse to the top displays the activity bar. Pushing the mouse to the left corner displayed the active applications.

NetworkManager works very well in switching between USB modem, wireless and wired connections in both Kubuntu and Ubuntu.

So far there were no surprises or complications.