Manufacturer's Updates??

[LittleDavid]

I've been using my CmNBook since January this year and have found it interesting, frustrating, just about usable for what I want (almost entirely writing and editing) which is something to replace my ancient Psions. I've had a lot of help from the forums here, and am grateful for it. For the £140 I paid, this tiddler is well worth the money and the trouble. (Well, I was an IBM systems programmer for 27 years.)  HOWEVER, in this game, one is used to updates from the manufacturers being available, particularly to remove some of the more obvious hang-ups. Does anyone round this side of the world know whether this is going to happen for the CmNBook? Is there anything we users can do to help make it happen? I don,t want to have to spend oodles of money on the latest and greatest mini that reads e-books, plays pop songs, talks to Facebook etc, all at once all day long. I just want a CmNBook Plus that does what this one does, but properly. Should I pray, send a letter to the UN, book a flight to China, or just get stuffed?

[wicknix]

Other than a few random (and some rather pointless) updates from Skytone i wouldn't be expecting much. In my opinion i think the only real updates we will see will come from the LLL user community.

Cheers.

[jimux]

Wicknix is too modest, He has produced a set of excellent replacement Linux Distributions and if you want to use the box as an end-user tool rather than a development/education environment I would thoroughly recommend his Retro 1.2 as a replacement for the original software.

The real limit is that the processor is uncommon and so software generally needs cross-compiling from source code.  Judging from the size of code items on the box the cross-compile is somewhat loose and probably reflects the available crossers for the box.  A real pity as if we had a tightly written assembly version similar to DSL it would transform the performance and release a lot of storage space.

[wicknix]

Wicknix is too modest, He has produced a set of excellent replacement Linux Distributions

Heh, thanks. They aren't perfect solutions by any means, just more options and more robust.

Cheers.

[LittleDavid]

  Yes, yes. What I really had in mind was a manufacturer's update, with improvements on the known limitations from the manufacturer. They've come so close to what I want that I would be very disappointed to find they've shot their bolt.  Wicknix has done wonders with the software, but I don't see it as making a major improvement in my text editing and copying experience, which is why I haven't tried it. I presume that Wicknix's efforts cannot reach the keyboard reading code to avoid my two (sometimes three, rapid) fingers getting text in surprising places, with occasional strings of extraneous characters after it, nor making the text go up and down wildly when the cursor gets on the vertical shift bar. With a few such detailed improvements, this would be my ideal brief-case machine, and at that price an amazing bargain. (Hint, hint.  What's the Chinese for blue sky optimism?)

[wicknix]

The Keyboard/extra character issue is found to be in the current 2.4 kernel that these machine came with. This has been fixed in the 2.6 kernel, however the 2.6 kernel isn't ready for prime time yet. It has cache issues which cause GTK applications to crash or not open at all. Give all us code hacker's some time. I'm not helping with the kernel development, just pumping out software and distro's, but the mailing list seems quite active for kernel development.

However after saying that, you might be quite surprised with 3MX Ultra and what it has to offer over the default OS. Also quite a few users have posted in the past about how the random character issues were much less persistant after installing 3MX.

Cheers

[LittleDavid]

Thanks Wicknix: I eagerly await a new version. Meanwhile I'll see if I can pluck up the courage  - and time - to try your 3MX. My temerity is due to the fact that I have a lot of useful essaya on there at the moment, and access them daily. I'll post any news - good or bad!

[Freddie43]

wicknix

I was interested in your comment about the keyboard / extra character issue being fixed but sadly not released yet. It is also on my Linux Acer Aspire One. Have they common features? or is it all down to some Linux philosophy?

It has all the hallmarks of a real time program where someone forgot to save and restore the registers when handling interrupts!

[wicknix]

Freddie: Nah that problem is the kernel used (old as dust 2.4 kernel) and the SoC these machines have. These machines really don't have any "hardware" as most everything is controlled by the SoC (system on chip). There is no video card, no ethernet card etc etc. I have this same issue on my winCE powered razorbook 400 but it's not as bad. It's mostly boils down to skytone being in a hurry (look at the defaultOS..can't tell me that wasn't rushed) and not noticing (or patching) the keyboard. Why they went with the 2.4 kernel over the latest 2.6 kernel is also beyond me. Nothing has used the 2.4 kernel in a good 5 years or more.

Your problem with your Acer sounds like a hardware issue to me. That shouldn't happen. Maybe try a different distro on it by making a bootable usb key with any of the netbook distro's on it like ubuntu netbook remix. Maybe you have something simple like a quirky keyboard driver, but i highly doubt it.

Cheers.

[Freddie43]

Good news!
I recently loaded Ubuntu 11 on my Acer Aspire One and it cured the keyboard problem
Trouble is the poor little machine isn't really up to running it, and my much loved 15 sec startup time extended to over a minute!
Any news on fixing the problem on the CnM?