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.

NetworkManager makes a difference

I finally managed to get NetworkManager to work for a fixed ip as well. It was really simple. Both system-config-network and nm-applet create the appropriate files.

Fedora includes a plugin - ifcfg-rh. This integrates the /etc/sysconfig/network-scripts with the NetworkManager settings. The line needed in ifcfg-ethX is:
NM_CONTROLLED=yes

Plugging/unplugging the cable enables/disables the interface.

The use of NetworkManager reduced the boot time by about 20 sec to 1 minute.

Unfortunately, too late for me to check out the same changes on Fedora 10