Off-Topic > Off-Topic - Tiny Core Lounge
Gecko - netbook for tinycore
alu:
i have finally bought one, i shall report the results here
alu:
so, i have got the gecko netbook and here is my report:
1. look: pretty basic, looks like a plastic box for kid; i bought it black and barbones since i have all what the gecko needs (sd card 2GB, wifi usb dongle, power cable and AA batteries); the shipment was quickly made, and i have got the gecko within 4 days in Europe; shipment costs are high (~70$), so buy it barbones, it saves money; the gecko comes with a cd; there are drivers for windows, so useless for linux; i have partition my sd card in one partition for the tree and 300 MB swap;
2. downsides:
a. tc/mc 2.8 won't work with the gecko since it returns the known IO APIC error, followed by a kernel panic; the gecko works with tc 1.4.3 however, but i don't have the cramfs extensions anymore in order to test it; booting only the core was quick, though; so let's hope that the team can solve this issue in order for us to test the gecko with tc/mc last version;
b. i have installed slitaz 2.0 in order to perform my test;
what did not work was:
-- sound - it happens to require the realtek driver for linux; i have downloaded it and compiled it, but compilation failed because the driver can't find the compiler and other files/directories it should find in order to compile without issue; this is probably because the driver have been package with ubuntu or fedora in mind; i shall try with one of these distributions in order to see if sound works;
-- flash - it works until you are trying to play a youtube video; this was very sloppy, and with no sound it is no joy;
what worked:
-- wifi - no issue here;
3. good points:
a. the processor behave quickly, but don't hope to do a lot of multitasks work with flash and internet enabled, since you will quickly get 100% of your processor occupied which means that the system can be slow; it was expected;
b. office processing - no issue here, it is possible to work relatively quick with openoffice 3.0, a chat relay opened, as well as sylpheed opened;
c. hardware - keyboard: given the tiny size of the gecko, don't expect a wide keyboard; but it is possible to type with ten fingers relatively quickly; you have to practice a bit in order to use the keyboard as you would like to since it is very sensitive;
d. hardware - touchpad: tiny but quiet usable (point and click as well as touch-tap behaviors);
e. screen - perfect 1024x600x24 resolution - no issue here; very light screen, i can imagine to type hours with the gecko without having troubles with my eyes;
f. batteries - surprisingly enough, i could perform office tasks during more than 3 hours without power cable; charging the batteries to 100% has been done very quickly too, not more than 2 hours.
I give the gecko 7/10. No sound (-1), flash sloppy (-1) as well as some habits to develop in order to use the netbook (mainly the keyboard, -0.5, and the 'plastic-box' look of the laptop, -0,5) might be problematic for some users. But you'll get a fantastic portable X86 machine which is green, which runs very well on AA batteries, and which let you do basic office tasks without being too slow. Surely not for windows users, rather for advanced linux ones.
curaga:
Looks like the sound is just a pci id away; it would use the hda alsa driver.
There's also their own Xorg driver that might improve graphics performance.
I do wonder why is the pci id not in upstream yet (it was first made for .30), and why is the xorg driver not more widely available..
deviceonchip.com
alu:
yes, it is interesting to see that slitaz did not pick up the card... maybe the kernel (i have loaded the kernel modules almost corresponding to the card, but no success) which is the 2.25.X one; to be honest, i find that slitaz is a pretty good distribution if you have to use it static, i.e. with not much upgrade to do and not too much applications to check and install. it behaves really quickly and deserve its purpose as good tiny distro. but once you want more flexibility, you could spend much time to wait from the mirrors the check the packages, to download the packages and to install them. i have spent almost 15 minutes in order to desinstall fireforx and to install opera. besides, i'd like to see the behavior of tc/mc on the gecko with its own art to download and mount the extensions, which could be less time consuming and will give you maybe a better experience with such notebooks like the gecko one. this said, i am typing with the gecko right know in order to post this, and i have to say, the keyboard is really fun even if small. i can type really quickly with ten fingers after spending no more than one or two hours using the netbook. it's fun to see this piece of plastic running.
alu:
follow up - tested the gecko netbook with ubuntu 9.10. the bad idea i have had was to do a minimal install of ubuntu karmic in order to post-install everything else i would need to. it was a bad idea since after the installation i was unable to connect to the internet.
indeed, the ethernet card of the gecko requires the r6040 kernel module which is not present in ubuntu karmic (it is also not present in slitaz 2.0; several reports on the net said that it is supported in the linux kernel from 2.6.25 to 2.6.31, but this seems not to be always the case). as well, even if karmic has the module rtl8187 which i need for my wlan dongle, it returns a 'command not found' as issuing 'iwconfig' in order to configure the network. and i don't have a usb-to-rj45 adapter... so i went to install karmic desktop.
the installation process took time given the fact that you have to install karmic on a sd card, but it performs without issues. The systems loads without issue, even if booting karmic was slower than booting slitaz. There, i had the possibility to connect to the internet with my wlan dongle in order to update the system and clean it (= removing much apps that i don't want/don't use), and installing a tiny wm (evilwm, i am a bit fan of it).
ubuntu behaves has it does normally, but it is obviously slow on this machine, even if, in comparison with slitaz, it is not too much slow. that was what impressed me the most, and had impressed me in the past while comparing ubuntu with other tiniest distro: you don't see a big difference in speed processing while performing office tasks - ubuntu is just a bit slower than slitaz when you have to use openoffice or the gimp.
sound does not work at this time with alsa; i have to found the right codec in order to find the correct alsa-module for the realtek device. on my to-do list
flash and internet are really slower than in slitaz; this is the reason why i have switched back to slitaz.
at the moment, the result of my comparison is the following: the gecko works nice with slitaz and ubuntu 9.10 if you have to use it static (without to much flash web browsing - browsing the internet without flash is faster with slitaz than with ubuntu, but in both case fast enough though), if you don't mind not to hear to your favorite music while performing tasks, and if you can affoard little money in order to buy a usb-to-rj45 adapter for wired connection. i maintain a 7/10 for the gecko with ubuntu karmic; i have to test it now with the last puppy.
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