Toshiba NB200 and Kubuntu Netbook

[Guest]

Hello all!

So with the end of the Windows 7 Release Candidate's usability I'm looking to jump ship to a Linux distro - I wanted to use Linux when I first bought my netbook, a Toshiba NB200, last summer, but Ubuntu, Xubuntu, and Ubuntu Netbook Remix all didn't have good enough support for the hardware (specifically problems with the wireless, the sound, the bluetooth, and the hotkeys - plus some other problems that were less relevant to me). I have some past successful experience with other distros, but none with Kubuntu.

My perfect situation would be dual booting XP with a Linux distro, but I've never succeeded in installing XP without a CD drive, so I'm going to see if I can get Linux working in the next week (the W7 RC starts to shut down every two hours from next Monday) and then worry about dual booting at some future date.

My questions are: does anyone have any experience of Kubuntu on the NB200? How stable is the Netbook version of Kubuntu generally, and how good hardware support does it have? Will my data (on a separate partition but the same internal drive) be safe if I wipe my windows partition, make a partition for Kubuntu in its place, and install Kubuntu?

[dibl]

Re: Toshiba NB200 and Kubuntu Netbook

I have an NB205 -- I love it. I happen to have sidux installed on it, but I originally installed E-Live on it. Too bad I had to buy a Windows XP Home Edition license with it. The first thing I did was to boot a Parted Magic Live CD (via external CD ROM drive) and use Clonezilla to make an image of the hard drive, so I could restore it to "as new" if I need to.

So, here's what I know:

- The hard drive is also a Toshiba, and it has firmware in it that causes it to "fall asleep" in the absence of user interaction, in some modes. So, when installing Linux in text mode, it seems to "freeze" -- just tickle the touchpad to keep it going. This problem goes away while X is running. But you can see it again when doing an upgrade in tty console.

- The speakers are useless. It is clearly designed to output audio to headphones. The audio is great through my Radio Shack headphones. Do not expect to hear anything from the speakers.

- I use wicd for wireless, and it works like charm. The wireless range is respectable -- compares well to my Asus Eee PC.

- I tried Ubuntu Netbook (UNR) on it, but I don't like the "toy" look. My timing was not good to try Kubuntu -- KDE4 was in beta or something and I didn't care to risk it. Subsequently, KDE 4.3 on sidux works just fine.

- it will run Windows XP on a VMware Player machine, although the performance is not spectacular.

[Guest]

Re: Toshiba NB200 and Kubuntu Netbook

Thanks very much for the info! The hard drive issue won't be a problem for me - I replaced the hd with a larger one, so I imagine it won't have the same issues as the Toshiba original. Good to hear that you were able to get VMWare and the wireless working - I certainly had a lot of problems with the wireless when I last tried this.

Since posting, I've also tested out the Kubuntu Netbook live version from a usb key - surprisingly, wireless, audio, and accessing the non-linux partitions (all of which didn't work last summer when I tried other distros) all worked immediately. However, I tried running Amarok and the other music player which came preinstalled and neither worked - both opened, couldn't open files, and then crashed. Which suggests something odd might still be going on the audio, despite it appearing to work? Or is it possible that this is something to do with running it live?

[sithlord48]

Re: Toshiba NB200 and Kubuntu Netbook

please note. kubuntu and ubuntu DO NOT come with mp3 support by default.. if you were trying to play an mp3 then that would be why it coun't do it ..

that being said.. you might want to check out www.medibuntu.org for the codecs and other media related goodies for *buntu