I have a little experimental machine for playing with different distributions. Lately, the HP Mini 110-1081TU has been running MeeGo. Now it has been commissioned to run Linux Mint. This comes in a variety of flavours. The one reviewed here is Linx Mint Debian 201109. While the download was a monstrous 1.1G, the installation is the fastest I've ever seen. It literally took 10 minutes!
Post Installation - Wireless
This is where the fun begins. First off, I had trouble getting wireless to work. Reading dmesg gave very helpful instructions. Read the recommendations carefully! Doing so can save you much time and effort. The HP Mini 110 uses a Broadcom 4312 WLAN. Install the packages b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-lpphy-installer. I recommend the Linux Wireless page as it has exceptionally good documentation.
This is where the fun begins. First off, I had trouble getting wireless to work. Reading dmesg gave very helpful instructions. Read the recommendations carefully! Doing so can save you much time and effort. The HP Mini 110 uses a Broadcom 4312 WLAN. Install the packages b43-fwcutter and firmware-b43-lpphy-installer. I recommend the Linux Wireless page as it has exceptionally good documentation.
Post Installation - Sound
Sound quality is actually better than under previous Linux distributions I've tried. So I was very happy that I need no special post installation tasks. This is more a reflection on the hardware than the software.
The settings for the HP Mini 110 are HDA Intel (Alsa mixer) with Master, Headphone and Beep controls active. Use the last control to silence that nasty boot-up PC beep. The beep is issued from GDM. If you get errors about not being able to open shared library libasound_module_ctl_pulse, then try using the device parameter, alsamizer -c 0 For more, see the related posts on LinuxQuestions.
Post Installation - TrackPad
Post Installation - TrackPad
Most posts I've read about this are asking how to turn it off, not on!
The instructions that worked for my machine are here.
This has been one of the easier installations I've done. The system starts up quickly, and is responsive. The Xfce interface is clean and adaptable for the smaller screen size. And, I really like the idea of a rolling release! I think Linux Mint and I will be friends ...
6 comments:
Hi Frank. How's the Mini 110 project going? Which version of Linux has worked the best on it with the least "device driver hunting."
I'm interested in making the switch to Linux... looking at Ubuntu, but unsure how well it will work on the Mini 110.
Appreciate your insights.
For first time users I suggest Ubuntu. The reasons:
* easy install
* great device support
* clean interface
* excellent software repository
- frank
Hi.
How is battery life, running linux, and what about integrated keys, do they work?
My typical usage is just surfing the web using Chrome, so battery life is reasonable. These machines come standard with a 3 cell battery which last from 1 to 2 hours only. I think they would last longer if power absorbing fans didn't run constantly. My main machine is a Samsung Series 9, it runs for over 6 hours!
Thx.
So you find linux competitive to windows, on the same system? I fear a drastic reduction in battery life, going form windows to linux
I can not make a fair or informed assessment on comparative battery life as I do not have any running MS-Windows machines. Even at work I run a Linux laptop. Anecdotally, I see far fewer resources being used to run the system.
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