After saying I wouldnt get one I finally decided that at £150 it was too good a bargin too pass up
The netbook comes with a cut down version of linux on it called linpus. Its quite locked down so that its nice and easy to use.
To unlock it I followed the instructions here
http://jorge.fbarr.net/2008/08/06/acer-aspire-one-tips-and-tricks/
First I unlocked the deskop by doing
SUPERUSER
sudo su -
NOTEPAD style editor
mousepad
But the thing is, when you replace xfdesktopnew with xfdesktop-xfce, a script called xfce-mcs-manager won’t start up, and that is what some people find so “horrible” about the regular xfce-desktop. If we open up the file xfdesktopnew located in /usr/bin/, we find the following:
#!/bin/sh
if [ -f /usr/bin/xfce-mcs-manager.new ];then
sudo mv /usr/bin/xfce-mcs-manager.new /usr/bin/xfce-mcs-manager
fi
/usr/bin/xfdesktop2 & >/dev/null 2>&1
sleep 5
if [ -f /usr/bin/xfce-mcs-manager ];then
sudo mv /usr/bin/xfce-mcs-manager /usr/bin/xfce-mcs-manager.new
fi
As you can se here the script xfdesktopnew starts the application xfdesktop2. What that script contains, I’ve no idea. Try opening the file for yourself, you’ll see what I’m talking about. Anyway, in order for this to work, change the line:
/usr/bin/xfdesktop2 & >/dev/null 2>&1
to:
/usr/bin/xfdesktop & >/dev/null 2>&1
Save it and close it. Next, open up the file /usr/bin/xfdesktop, and change line 6 to look like this:
/usr/bin/xfdesktop-xfce & >/dev/null 2>&1
Save, close, and reboot. You should have a fully working xfce desktop, with icons!
Usually when you’re in xfce you can right-click on the desktop to bring forth a menu. This isn’t enabled as a standard function with the desktop that comes with the Acer Aspire One. To enable it, do the following.
On your desktop, under the File category, select My Documents. When this opens, select File and then Terminal. When the terminal opens, type:
$ xfce-setting-show
This will bring up the xfce settings manager. Select Desktop, Behavior and click the box named Show desktop menu on right click. Voila, that should be it.
Installing Firefox 3
If you want Firefox 3 to be installed properly (via yum), you should add the remi repository:
# wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/remi-release-8.rpm
# rpm -Uvh remi-release-8.rpm
Edit the file /etc/yum.repos.d/remi.repo, and set enabled to 1 under [remi] and NOT [remi-test].
Then we proceed with removing the old Firefox and installing the new one. Now, a regular yum remove firefox won’t work, as it’ll drag a buttload of dependencies with it. However, this will only remove Firefox, without its dependencies:
# rpm -e --nodeps firefox
Then install the new one:
# yum install firefox
That’s all there is to it.
Now, having said that, a friendly chap named Nacho Marin made me aware of a problem that had totally slipped my mind. It seems that there are several programs that are depending on some libraries that Firefox 2 has, and not Firefox 3. The Acer Aspire One e-mail client being one of them, and the RSS reader too. The missing libraries are libgtkembedmoz.so, libmozjs.so, libxpcom_core.so and libxpcom.so.
A big thank you to Nacho for the heads up about the library-files.
Update: It seems that several people were complaining about how the e-mail program kept shutting down for no apparent reason. It seems that they need more than simply the library-files. I believe I’ve located the files, and that you now should be able to have both Firefox 3, and the email client working. Give me some feedback to let me know how the script turns out.
I (Jorge) have made a script to make this a bit easier to fix, so stay tuned.
Update: Script is finished, instructions are as follows:
Become root and open a file named recover_firefox_libraries.sh:
$ sudo su -
# mousepad recover_firefox_libraries.sh
Place the following in it:
#!/bin/bash
#
## Script to recover Firefox 2 libraries
## Jorge Barrera Grandon
## Version 2
#
#
## Usage: ./recover_firefox_libraries.sh
WGET=`which wget`
RPM_URL="http://jorge.ulver.no/files/firefox-files.tar.gz"
MV=`which mv`
CHOWN=`which chown`
CHMOD=`which chmod`
RM=`which rm`
TAR=`which tar`
MKDIR=`which mkdir`
RMDIR=`which rmdir`
cd /root/
echo "## Getting hold of the Firefox-files.."
$WGET $RPM_URL
echo "## Unpacking the library-files.."
$TAR zxvf firefox-files.tar.gz
echo "## Moving library-files.."
$MV /usr/acer/bin/AME /usr/acer/bin/old.AME
$MV /root/firefox-files/AME /usr/acer/bin/AME
$MKDIR /usr/lib/firefox-files/
$MV /root/firefox-files/* /usr/lib/firefox-files/
echo "## Changing permissions and cleaning up.."
$RM /root/firefox-files.tar.gz
$RMDIR /root/firefox-files/
$CHOWN -R root.root /usr/lib/firefox-files/
$CHMOD -R 755 /usr/lib/firefox-files/
echo "## Done!"
What the script basically does is to get hold of the file firefox-files.tar.gz (so be online when running it), moves the libraryfiles, changes the permission, and removes the file and the unnecessary directories it creates. Make the file executable, then run it:
# chmod +x recover_firefox_libraries.sh
# ./recover_firefox_libraries.sh
Enjoy!