Mandriva supports eee

[Valent Turkovic]

http://justingill.com/blog/2008/03/18/mandriva-linux-spring-2008-release-on-...

Interesting article.

I know there is eeedora but that is not an official fedora spin but a
project maintained by only one eee and fedora user [1]

Are there any plans to support eeedora project? there are milions of
eee sold and although xandros has made a nice UI for it the base
system has lost of issues if users want to install new software
(apt-get dependency hell because of conflicting xandros, debian,
ubuntu and eee repos).

Cheers,
Valent.

[1] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/02/14/fedora-eee-pc-eeedora/

[Gain Paolo Mureddu]

Valent Turkovic escribió:
> http://justingill.com/blog/2008/03/18/mandriva-linux-spring-2008-release-on-...
>
> Interesting article.
>
> I know there is eeedora but that is not an official fedora spin but a
> project maintained by only one eee and fedora user [1]
>
> Are there any plans to support eeedora project? there are milions of
> eee sold and although xandros has made a nice UI for it the base
> system has lost of issues if users want to install new software
> (apt-get dependency hell because of conflicting xandros, debian,
> ubuntu and eee repos).
>
> Cheers,
> Valent.
>
> [1] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/02/14/fedora-eee-pc-eeedora/

I'm not sure if it is of any indication, but in the .src.rpm for the 
2.6.25-rc5-git4 kernel available in the development repo, there is at 
least one patch aimed at supporting the eee, so I think that support for 
this new hot device is indeed a priority, at least so much as to warrant 
a patch for the kernel for it.

[Rex Dieter]

Valent Turkovic wrote:
>

http://justingill.com/blog/2008/03/18/mandriva-linux-spring-2008-release-on-...
> Interesting article.
>
> I know there is eeedora but that is not an official fedora spin but a
> project maintained by only one eee and fedora user [1]
> [1] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/02/14/fedora-eee-pc-eeedora/

...
> Are there any plans to support eeedora project?

All it takes really is someone (or a group of someones) to step up and
create a fedora SIG to produce/support such a thing.

-- Rex

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 09:34 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
> Valent Turkovic wrote:
> >
>
> http://justingill.com/blog/2008/03/18/mandriva-linux-spring-2008-release-on-...
> > Interesting article.
> >
> > I know there is eeedora but that is not an official fedora spin but a
> > project maintained by only one eee and fedora user [1]
> > [1] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/02/14/fedora-eee-pc-eeedora/
>
> ...
> > Are there any plans to support eeedora project?
>
> All it takes really is someone (or a group of someones) to step up and
> create a fedora SIG to produce/support such a thing.

I actually emailed a group of people, including the Eeedora maintainer
and some Fedora contributors, to encourage the formation of this type of
effort in February, and the thread moved a little bit before trailing
off.  I'm not sure we can host Eeedora itself due to some (*sigh*)
nonfree bits required by the hardware vendor's implementation, but we
certainly can and should bring some more eyeballs to the work.

If they haven't done it already, anyone of the group -- and I've Cc:'d
them for good measure -- could probably communicate with other
interested groups using the Fedora Planet feed to attract some interest.
There are a *lot* of people who either read or aggregate our Planet.  It
just takes someone with a blog, or the interest in setting one up (which
is dead-simple; you don't even have to DIY), to start that ball rolling.
There's a rollup effect too, because Fedora Weekly News, for example,
grabs items from the Planet as well.  I suggested this in the previous
thread as well.

What else can we do to seed some Eeedora interest?

[Nicu Buculei]

Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 09:34 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
> > All it takes really is someone (or a group of someones) to step up and
> > create a fedora SIG to produce/support such a thing.
>
> I actually emailed a group of people, including the Eeedora maintainer
> and some Fedora contributors, to encourage the formation of this type of
> effort in February, and the thread moved a little bit before trailing
> off.  I'm not sure we can host Eeedora itself due to some (*sigh*)
> nonfree bits required by the hardware vendor's implementation, but we
> certainly can and should bring some more eyeballs to the work.

I don't own an Eee PC don't play to buy one at least until the second 
generation (with a bigger display) will get out (expected this summer) 
but if I had such a device I would want to install a full Fedora, not a 
bastardized version of it (I may consider the Xfce spin if it is too 
slow for GNOME).
This is why I am curious why (if) Eee PC is not supported by Fedora 
out-of-the box. As I understand from the linked article, Mandriva works 
OOTB on Eee PC, only with some minor issues. It is not the same with Fedora?

Several other similar devices are released or are expected to be 
released during the F9 life cycle (Cloudbook, MSI Wind, etc.) so I think 
its is a worthy goal to have Fedora usable on them.

[Jonathan Dieter]

On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 18:05 +0200, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> I don't own an Eee PC don't play to buy one at least until the second 
> generation (with a bigger display) will get out (expected this summer) 
> but if I had such a device I would want to install a full Fedora, not a 
> bastardized version of it (I may consider the Xfce spin if it is too 
> slow for GNOME).
> This is why I am curious why (if) Eee PC is not supported by Fedora 
> out-of-the box. As I understand from the linked article, Mandriva works 
> OOTB on Eee PC, only with some minor issues. It is not the same with Fedora?

[snip]

FWIW, I have an Eee PC, so I'll try to answer this:

When I first got the Eee PC, none of its network interfaces were
supported by Fedora.  I needed both the atl2 driver for the wired
network and madwifi for the wireless.

As the Eee PC doesn't have a CD drive, that left no easy way to get it
installed.  In the end, I downloaded and installed Eeedora, and then
reverted any changed packages back to Fedora (bringing me back to a
standard Fedora install).

I also went back to Gnome (mainly because it's familiar), set up a swap
partition for hibernation (setting sys.vm.swappiness to 0 so it doesn't
swap unless absolutely necessary), and installed compiz-fusion.  It
works great for me, and I've had no problems using it to connect at
various miscellaneous hotspots.

ATM the only non-Fedora bits I have on it are the patched madwifi driver
for wireless and the asus_acpi_eee driver so the hotkeys work.  The atl2
wired driver is now included in the latest Fedora kernels.

Jonathan

[Nicu Buculei]

Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 18:05 +0200, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> > This is why I am curious why (if) Eee PC is not supported by Fedora 
> > out-of-the box. As I understand from the linked article, Mandriva works 
> > OOTB on Eee PC, only with some minor issues. It is not the same with Fedora?
>
> [snip]
>
> FWIW, I have an Eee PC, so I'll try to answer this:
>
> When I first got the Eee PC, none of its network interfaces were
> supported by Fedora.  I needed both the atl2 driver for the wired
> network and madwifi for the wireless.
>
> As the Eee PC doesn't have a CD drive, that left no easy way to get it
> installed.  In the end, I downloaded and installed Eeedora, and then
> reverted any changed packages back to Fedora (bringing me back to a
> standard Fedora install).

But now with the livecd-iso-to-disk helping to create a bootable USB 
stick I expect this in not such a hassle, right?
> I also went back to Gnome (mainly because it's familiar), set up a swap
> partition for hibernation (setting sys.vm.swappiness to 0 so it doesn't
> swap unless absolutely necessary), and installed compiz-fusion.  It
> works great for me, and I've had no problems using it to connect at
> various miscellaneous hotspots.
>
> ATM the only non-Fedora bits I have on it are the patched madwifi driver
> for wireless and the asus_acpi_eee driver so the hotkeys work.  The atl2
> wired driver is now included in the latest Fedora kernels.

So if I understand correctly, the main remaining problem is the madwifi 
driver, for which we can't do much about and the rest is pretty smooth.

[Jonathan Dieter]

On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 19:28 +0200, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> > FWIW, I have an Eee PC, so I'll try to answer this:
> >
> > When I first got the Eee PC, none of its network interfaces were
> > supported by Fedora.  I needed both the atl2 driver for the wired
> > network and madwifi for the wireless.
> >
> > As the Eee PC doesn't have a CD drive, that left no easy way to get it
> > installed.  In the end, I downloaded and installed Eeedora, and then
> > reverted any changed packages back to Fedora (bringing me back to a
> > standard Fedora install).
>
> But now with the livecd-iso-to-disk helping to create a bootable USB 
> stick I expect this in not such a hassle, right?

I would expect not.  Also, as mentioned below, atl2 is now in Fedora,
which means you should be able to do a network install with F9+.
> > I also went back to Gnome (mainly because it's familiar), set up a swap
> > partition for hibernation (setting sys.vm.swappiness to 0 so it doesn't
> > swap unless absolutely necessary), and installed compiz-fusion.  It
> > works great for me, and I've had no problems using it to connect at
> > various miscellaneous hotspots.
> >
> > ATM the only non-Fedora bits I have on it are the patched madwifi driver
> > for wireless and the asus_acpi_eee driver so the hotkeys work.  The atl2
> > wired driver is now included in the latest Fedora kernels.
>
> So if I understand correctly, the main remaining problem is the madwifi 
> driver, for which we can't do much about and the rest is pretty smooth.

That's my take, anyway.  FWIW, the F8 rhgb doesn't scale properly on
800x480 and the gdm login screen just *barely* fits.  But those are both
minor details.

Jonathan

[Paul W. Frields]

On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 22:02 +0200, Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 19:28 +0200, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> > Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> > > FWIW, I have an Eee PC, so I'll try to answer this:
> > >
> > > When I first got the Eee PC, none of its network interfaces were
> > > supported by Fedora.  I needed both the atl2 driver for the wired
> > > network and madwifi for the wireless.
> > >
> > > As the Eee PC doesn't have a CD drive, that left no easy way to get it
> > > installed.  In the end, I downloaded and installed Eeedora, and then
> > > reverted any changed packages back to Fedora (bringing me back to a
> > > standard Fedora install).
> >
> > But now with the livecd-iso-to-disk helping to create a bootable USB 
> > stick I expect this in not such a hassle, right?
>
> I would expect not.  Also, as mentioned below, atl2 is now in Fedora,
> which means you should be able to do a network install with F9+.
> > > I also went back to Gnome (mainly because it's familiar), set up a swap
> > > partition for hibernation (setting sys.vm.swappiness to 0 so it doesn't
> > > swap unless absolutely necessary), and installed compiz-fusion.  It
> > > works great for me, and I've had no problems using it to connect at
> > > various miscellaneous hotspots.
> > >
> > > ATM the only non-Fedora bits I have on it are the patched madwifi driver
> > > for wireless and the asus_acpi_eee driver so the hotkeys work.  The atl2
> > > wired driver is now included in the latest Fedora kernels.
> >
> > So if I understand correctly, the main remaining problem is the madwifi 
> > driver, for which we can't do much about and the rest is pretty smooth.
>
> That's my take, anyway.  FWIW, the F8 rhgb doesn't scale properly on
> 800x480 and the gdm login screen just *barely* fits.  But those are both
> minor details.

So how do you guys propose to get some of this information past the
small audience on this list and into a larger domain?  If there's call
for it, why not a EeePC SIG and some wiki pages that will be of use to
Fedora lovers who have this hardware, or for that matter, EeePC lovers
who want to try Fedora?  The previously suggested blog postings?
Connecting these two dots in the googlemind is a big win.

[Rahul Sundaram]

Paul W. Frields wrote:
> So how do you guys propose to get some of this information past the
> small audience on this list and into a larger domain?  If there's call
> for it, why not a EeePC SIG and some wiki pages that will be of use to
> Fedora lovers who have this hardware, or for that matter, EeePC lovers
> who want to try Fedora?  The previously suggested blog postings?
> Connecting these two dots in the googlemind is a big win.

Post a invitation to fedora-devel list and copy that into your blog too.

Rahul

[Nicu Buculei]

Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> That's my take, anyway.  FWIW, the F8 rhgb doesn't scale properly on
> 800x480 and the gdm login screen just *barely* fits.  But those are both
> minor details.

We have a couple of bleeding edge stuff for this case too, so bleeding 
edge that is probably can't be found on any other distro:

- as you may know, GDM is rewritten. It was so bleeding edge that it was 
not included in GNOME 2.22, which reverted in the last minute to the 
previous version. The Red Hat Desktop team is confident that the 
additional time will allow them to fix the last remaining issues. I have 
not looked at the layout yet (will do after the Beta, but I don't have 
an Eee anyway) but it is supposed to scale much better. It would be 
useful is some Eee user will test that and report the bugs, if any.

- another brand-new feature form the Desktop Team is multiresolution 
backgrounds. That is, the Art Team can provide the desktop wallpaper as 
an XML linking to multiple images, appropriate for various screen sizes. 
I will try to take care of that so we do not forget 800x480 as one of 
those sizes.

I think we have enough facts that until the release day will allow us to 
spin a positive image for Fedora's Eee usage.

[Jonathan Dieter]

On Fri, 2008-03-21 at 09:04 +0200, Nicu Buculei wrote:
> as you may know, GDM is rewritten. It was so bleeding edge that it was
>
> not included in GNOME 2.22, which reverted in the last minute to the 
> previous version. The Red Hat Desktop team is confident that the 
> additional time will allow them to fix the last remaining issues. I have 
> not looked at the layout yet (will do after the Beta, but I don't have 
> an Eee anyway) but it is supposed to scale much better. It would be 
> useful is some Eee user will test that and report the bugs, if any.

I will happily try things out on my Eee PC if it helps.  Let me see what
I can do about getting Rawhide running on the Eee PC (it will mainly be
an issue with tracking Rawhide, I'm bandwidth impaired).
> I think we have enough facts that until the release day will allow us to 
> spin a positive image for Fedora's Eee usage.

Brilliant!

Jonathan

[Chuck Anderson]

On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 06:58:58PM +0200, Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> ATM the only non-Fedora bits I have on it are the patched madwifi driver
> for wireless and the asus_acpi_eee driver so the hotkeys work.  The atl2
> wired driver is now included in the latest Fedora kernels.

ath5k doesn't work on this wireless hardware?

[Jonathan Dieter]

On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 20:47 -0400, Chuck Anderson wrote:
> On Thu, Mar 20, 2008 at 06:58:58PM +0200, Jonathan Dieter wrote:
> > ATM the only non-Fedora bits I have on it are the patched madwifi driver
> > for wireless and the asus_acpi_eee driver so the hotkeys work.  The atl2
> > wired driver is now included in the latest Fedora kernels.
>
> ath5k doesn't work on this wireless hardware?

In the F8 kernels, no, and, at least from what I'm tracking elsewhere,
it hasn't been implemented upstream yet.  Basically, Asus created a
patch against Madwifi and is using that for the Eee PC's native OS.  See
http://madwifi.org/ticket/1679 for more information.

Jonathan

[Rahul Sundaram]

Paul W. Frields wrote:
> On Thu, 2008-03-20 at 09:34 -0500, Rex Dieter wrote:
> > Valent Turkovic wrote:
> >
> > http://justingill.com/blog/2008/03/18/mandriva-linux-spring-2008-release-on-...
> > > Interesting article.
> > >
> > > I know there is eeedora but that is not an official fedora spin but a
> > > project maintained by only one eee and fedora user [1]
> > > [1] http://www.redhatmagazine.com/2008/02/14/fedora-eee-pc-eeedora/
> >
> > ...
> > > Are there any plans to support eeedora project?
> >
> > All it takes really is someone (or a group of someones) to step up and
> > create a fedora SIG to produce/support such a thing.

An update

http://kernelslacker.livejournal.com/115918.html

Rahul

[Rahul Sundaram]

Valent Turkovic wrote:
> http://justingill.com/blog/2008/03/18/mandriva-linux-spring-2008-release-on-...
>
> Interesting article.
>
> I know there is eeedora but that is not an official fedora spin but a
> project maintained by only one eee and fedora user [1]
>
> Are there any plans to support eeedora project? there are milions of
> eee sold and although xandros has made a nice UI for it the base
> system has lost of issues if users want to install new software
> (apt-get dependency hell because of conflicting xandros, debian,
> ubuntu and eee repos).

It would help if you ask the question in one list instead of continuing 
to insist on posting messages all over. I already replied at

https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-list/2008-March/msg01978.html

Rahul