A quick update for Jupiter users: Jupiter 0.1.2 has been released and it now uses Python by default instead of C#. The latest Jupiter comes with an Ubuntu AppIndicator as well as a notification area applet for those who don't use Ubuntu, so there's no need to use PyJupiter anymore.
The new version also brings support Glidepoint touchpads and bug fixes.
If you're using the WebUpd8 PPA and have either PyJupiter or Jupiter installed, there's no need to remove any packages, just run a regular update (dist-upgrade may be needed if you run it from the command line) and you should get the new Jupiter 0.1.2. The "pyjupiter" package is now a metapackage so you can remove it if you want.
To install Jupiter in Ubuntu 12.04, 11.10, 11.04 or 10.10, use the commands below:
Jupiter is an applet designed to improve laptops / netbooks battery life. It can be used to switch between maximum, high performance and power saving modes, change the screen resolution and orientation, enable or disable bluetooth, touchpad, WiFi (if available) and so on. If you own an Asus EeePC netbook, there's also a separate package that adds support for Asus Super Hybrid Engine (SHE) as well as some other EeePC tweaks.
Jupiter applet is written in Mono and it comes with a systray icon only, so to use it in Ubuntu you have to whitelist Jupiter to get it to work. Jorge Luis Betancourt Gonzalez has re-written Jupiter applet in Python (there are no more Mono dependencies) and added Ubuntu appindicator support, so there's no need to whitelist the systray anymore. The new Jupiter applet written in Python is called pyJupiter.
This isn't an official Jupiter port to Python, though Fewt, the Jupiter developer, is considering switching Jupiter to Python. Update: Jupiter has officially switched to Python so there's no need to use pyJupiter anymore. Just install Jupiter as usual.
For now, the Jupiter indicator only comes with Ubuntu mono light (for dark panels) icons but if you want to use it with a light panel, you can download Ubuntu mono dark Jupiter icons from HERE (to use them, copy the icons to the /usr/share/pixmaps folder).
Some of you have asked how to dual-boot Android-X86 4.0 ICS(which uses GRUB legacy) with Ubuntu (GRUB 2), so here's how to do it, including a video showing all the required steps as well as installing Android-X86.
It doesn't matter in which order you install Ubuntu and Android-x86 40, but if you install Android-x86 after Ubuntu, make sure you don't select to install GRUB or else you'll have to reinstall GRUB manually using a Live CD.
Notes:
All Android-x86 supported filesystems should work (ext2, ext3, fat32 and ntfs)
It may work with other Linux distributions that use GRUB 2, but I've only tested it with Ubuntu. Some parts of the instructions below may be different for other Linux distributions. Also, the Android-X86 version used in my test was 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich RC1.
Firstly, here's a video with all the required steps to dual-boot Android-x86 4.0 and Ubuntu:
1. After you've installed both Ubuntu and Android-x86, you need to boot into Ubuntu and modify the "40_custom" GRUB script:
gksu gedit /etc/grub.d/40_custom
And at the bottom of the file, add this:
menuentry "Android-x86" { set root='(hd0,0)' linux /android-4.0-RC1/kernel quiet root=/dev/ram0 androidboot.hardware=eeepc acpi_sleep=s3_bios,s3_mode SRC=/android-4.0-RC1 SDCARD=/data/sdcard.img initrd /android-4.0-RC1/initrd.img}
There are some changes you'll need to make to the above menu entry (code above):
If you didn't create an sdcard image, remove the "SDCARD=/data/sdcard.img" part from the 3rd line (make sure you don't remove anything else!)
The above menu entry uses "eeepc" for androidboot.hardware, but you can replace it with your hardware, depending on the ISO you've downloaded (use "asus_laptop" for the ASUS Laptop ISO, etc.) or use "generic_x86".
If you haven't installed Android-x86 4.0 RC1 but some other version, replace the lines containing "android-4.0-RC1" with your version.
For Android-x86 versions older than 4.0, use "androidboot_hardware" instead of "androidboot.hardware"
But the most important thing you need to change in the menuentry is the partition on which you've installed Android-x86, "(hd0,0)" in my example. If you don't know on which partition you've installed it, run the following command in a terminal:
sudo fdisk -l
In the video above, I've installed Android-x86 on "sda6", so I've replaced "(hd0,0)" with "(hd0,6)" - hd0 means the first hard disk ("sda") and "6" is the partition and comes from "sda6".
Hard disk naming starts with 0 so basically, sda is "hd0", sdb is "hd1" and so on. Counting partitions doesn't start with 0, so if you've installed Android x86 on let's say "sda5", you'd use "(hd0,5).
Once you make these changes, save the file.
2. Now let's make the file executable and update GRUB 2:
3. That's pretty much it. Now you can restart your laptop/netbook and while it boots, press and hold the SHIFT key (before GRUB loads) or else the GRUB menu won't be displayed. Here, select if you want to boot Ubuntu or Android-x86 (or whatever other operating systems you may have).
If you want the GRUB menu to show up on every boot, you can tweak it using a tool such as Grub Customizer or Startup Manager.
Android-x86 is a project that provides Android support for x86, making it easy to install it on netbooks or laptops. You can use it like any other Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich device: install applications from the Android Market, add widgets and so on.
The Android x86 team has released Android x86 4.0 RC1, based on Android 4.0.3 (Ice Cream Sandwich) and features:
Support Multi-touch, Wifi, Audio, Bluetooth, G-sensor and Camera.
OpenGL hardware acceleration for AMD Radeon and Intel chipsets
Kernel 3.0.8 with KMS enabled - most netbooks can run Android-x86 in the native resolution.
V8 javascript engine
Simulate sdcard by internal storage
External usb drive and sdcard are auto mounted to /mnt/USB on plugging
Experimental support of Renderscript
A text based GUI installer which supports ext3/ext2/ntfs/fat32 filesystems
Hybrid ISO (you can dump the iso into a usb drive using "dd if=android-x86-4.0-xxx.iso of=/dev/sdX")
In my test Android x86 4.0 worked great on my Asus EeePC: the camera, Wifi and so on are supported out of the box. The only issue I've had was related to suspend/sleep: I was unable to unlock the screen, but at least in my case, there was a fix (see under tips below). Also, applications compiled for ARM like Chrome, Firefox or Netflix and others don't work (they don't even show up in the Market) unless you recompile them.
If you don't have a netbook or laptop to test it and you want to give it a try in VirtualBox, unfortunately the ethernet won't work for now. You can, of course, test it in VirtualBox without an Internet connection - simply download the EeePC version, create a new VirtualBox machine and run it.
Update: for a custom ISO with a patch that adds ethernet support, see THIS post (thanks to Paweł Lesiecki!) but please note that this build doesn't have the Android Market installed by default (and comes with some other customizations). Since this not an official Android-x86 ISO, use it at your own risk!
A few Android-x86 4.0 (ICS) tips:
When using it in VirtualBox, but make sure you select "Disable Mouse Integration" (under the "Machine" menu) to get the mouse to work once you boot the Android x86 4.0 Live ISO
Disable screen autorotate from the Android-x86 settings, or else some application might rotate it for you (and that's quite annoying if your device doesn't support it)
If you can't unlock the screen, try to use the built-in wake-up keyboard shortcut if available (Fn + F1 for my Asus EeePC), then use the mouse to slide the keyguard
For shutdown / power off, you can use an application such as Shutdown.
Android x86-4.0 RC1 screenshots
Here are a few screenshots from my Asus EeePC running Android-x86 4.0 RC1:
Download Android x86 4.0
Android-x86 4.0 has been tested / it should work on AMD Brazos (MSI 110W), Asus EeePC or some Asus laptops/tablets and Tegav2 / Viewpad 10. These are the officially supported devices, but Android-x86 should work on others too. An old list of supported devices / hardware can be found HERE.
To use it, write the ISO on an USB stick using Unetbootin, Linux Live USB Creator (LiLi) or using the command line (example: "dd if=android-x86-4.0-RC1-eeepc.iso of=/dev/sdX", where "sdaX" is your USB drive). For more info, see the Android-x86 installation page or see here: 4 Ways to Create Bootable Live USB Drives (For Windows, Linux and Mac OS X).
Nvidia Optimus is a technology available for notebooks, used to increases battery life by switching the dedicated GPU off when it's not needed and then switching it on again when it's needed. When the dedicated GPU is off, the integrated graphics chip is used.
Nvidia Optimus GPU switching is officially only supported on Windows 7, but it's also unofficially available on Linux thanks to the Bumblebee project.
Bumblebee 3.0 "Tumbleweed" has been released yesterday - here are the release highlights:
Server / client re-written in C which provides increased performance and reliability
Automatic power management which also survives suspend
Improved error detection and reporting
Better system integration
Switch to Upstart startup mechanism
acpi_call has been replaced with bbswitch and vga_switcheroo
Nouveau support for the Ubuntu PPA package
"optirun --status" will now show the current status of Bumblebee and the secondary GPU on your system
Xorg configuration greatly simplified, provided defaults usually work out of the box.
Please note that I do not own a Nvidia Optimus powered device so I couldn't test this!
To install Bumblebee 3.0 "Tumbleweed", see the Bumblebee installation wiki page(instructions for Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu - PPA included, and installation from source). Oh, and to use it, you obviously need a Nvidia Optimus powered notebook.
CPUFreq Indicator is a CPU frequency scaling GNOME panel applet replacement.
A new CPUFreq Indicator version has been uploaded to its PPA for Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot. The new version comes with some very important fixes, such as: the bug that caused CPUFreq Indicator to only manage one core as well as the bug that was causing it not to work at all in Ubuntu 11.04 have been fixed for Ubuntu 11.10. The latest version also comes with a new AppIndicator icon.
Unfortunately these fixes are not available (at least for now) for Ubuntu 11.04. The PPA now provides the new version for Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal too.
To install the latest CPU Frequency Indicator in Ubuntu 11.10 Oneiric Ocelot or 11.04 Natty Narwhal, use the commands below:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:artfwo/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install indicator-cpufreq
CPUFreq Indicator will be automatically added to your startup applications (only available for the Oneiric version) so it will start automatically when you log in. To run it manually, press ALT + F2 and type:
Pinguy has released Ping-Eee OS 11.04, an Ubuntu-based remaster especially designed for netbooks:
This was built and compiled using the ASUS Eee 901 Netbook and designed from the ground up to run on netbooks.
It comes with Jupiter (which has Super Hybrid Engine support) and Granola to help with the power consumption and most applications from Pinguy OS: Docky, Nautilus Elementary, Firefox, Thunderbird, Skype, LibreOffice, Dropbox, Deluge, Empathy, VLC, Deja Dup backup tool, Linux Mint Update Manager, Wine and more. There's also Clementine instead of Rhythmbox.
However, some of the applications available in the main Pinguy OS have been removed either because they make no sense on a netbook (e.g.: burning software) or because they use a lot of memory (Gnome DO, Glipper or Vineyard).
Ping-Eee OS also comes with extra WiFi drivers for many devices which are not normally supported out of the box on other Linux distributions, downgraded Compiz (to version 0.8.6 to avoid some problems that exist in Ubuntu 11.04) and many other tweaks and fixes.
One thing I don't agree on is using Docky by default: it's too heavy for a netbook and is not great for screen real estate either. A regular GNOME panel on the left or right with DockBarX seems a much better choice, at least in my view. Here's a screenshot from an old "Ubuntu netbook optimization" post on WebUpd8 to get an idea on what I mean - that was before Unity was announced by the way. But of course, many of you might like it and also, you can always customize Ping-Eee further and use DockBarX, AWN or any other panel/dock, they are all available in the PPAs/repositories available in Ping-Eee OS.
As you probably already know, the Linux Kernel has a pretty significant power issue starting with version 2.6.38 which hasn't been fixed yet (this includes version 3.0.0). This bug causes power consumption to go up by nearly 30% (and hence a shorter battery life) as reported by Phoronix which is pretty bad for netbook / laptop users. Some users are also reporting that this causes their laptops to overheat.
Well, Phoronix has found a way around this bug (you can read the article here) so below I'll tell you the exact steps you must follow to finally fix this issue.
The instructions below will force Active-State Power Management to be enabled by editing the GRUB2 config file and while this should work for most computers, it will not work for all. Also, Phoronix notes that "if your system's BIOS/hardware is in bad shape, you may hit system hangs" though it seems this is not something very common:
"I've never encountered ASPM problems with it enabled on any of my systems in pre-2.6.38 nor have I seen any reports of such in the Phoronix Forums or elsewhere."
- Phoronix
But anyway, use this at your own risk!
How to apply the Linux Kernel 2.6.38+ power issue workaround
1. To force Active-State Power Management to be enabled, you must edit the GRUB2 config file so open a terminal and copy/paste this:
gksu gedit /etc/default/grub
2. Then, locate the line that looks like this:
GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT="quiet splash"
(it's on line 11 on my computer) and to the end of the line, before the last quote, add pcie_aspm=force (and a space before it), which should make it look like this:
Now double check you've edited the file correctly! Modifying this file incorrectly may cause your computer to stop booting!
3. And finally, update GRUB using the command below:
sudo update-grub
And restart your computer.
If something goes wrong, reverting the changes is pretty easy: simply open "/etc/default/grub" as root and remove "pcie_aspm=force" from the end of the "GRUB_CMDLINE_LINUX_DEFAULT" line, then run "sudo update-grub".
