Tutorial - Installing PeppermintOS Three on an Acer Aspire One AOA110L ZG5

[jofflebug]

Mark, you legend.

I am writing this from my newly installed peppermint 3 with Spotify playing in the background. I can't thank you enough for the tutorials, you deserve an OBE or something!

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Well, I don't quite know how to respond to that, other than to say "you're more than welcome"

If an Earl has an OBE, does that make him an earlobe ?
(sorry for that .. but I couldn't resist)

[elcuolo]

Hi Mark,

I am a Linux Virgin and have just got this up and running on a colleagues Aspire One, thank you for taking the time out to produce this invaluable tutorial it has certainly made installing this OS a doddle.

You should get a Knighthood for services to the newbie Linux community.... 
 
Cheers

Eddie

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Hi elcuolo, and welcome to the forum

I'm glad to hear it was of some help .. and thanks for the feedback.

I reckon a knighthood is probably out of the question .. Though "Sir Mark of Cornwall" has got a certain ring to it

[elcuolo]

Ok, well maybe a nice cool pint of Pear Rattler instead then?

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Now that's more like it

[andrea987]

Hi Mark, finally! Just managed to switch OS to Peppermint, already loving it!
Just 2 questions (and here we start, I hear you sigh...): How do I see the memory status of ssd and left sd card (not what's in it, but the free/used memory).
Also, there are quite few commands to run for the optimal setup (skype, fan, etc), I'd like to save everything as it is now to save me from having to do it again in future. Is there a good program to do a full backup of the system on a usb drive? Can I use the directions you gave me long time ago on how to do it for the Linpus (don't know where they are, have to search through the topics now)?
Also, the Fn commands are working for the brightness, but not for the volume (no icon coming up), is it normal?
Thanks in advance, Mark, you're the greatest, as usual!!!

[glitch]

Hi andrea,

Sorry for jumping in (I hope Mark doesn't mind!)

To see a list of drive space for all mounted drives you can run;

Code: [Select]

df -h

This will show total size, amount used and what's available.

As for doing a backup there a number of ways of doing this.  I recommend CloneZilla.  The easiest way is to use their Live CD/DVD or a system which includes CloneZilla, such as partedmagic.

Another option is to use the 'dd' command.  With this you can either create a clone of your hard drive by running;

Code: [Select]

dd if=dev/sda of=/dev/sdb

'if' and 'of' are the input and output variables with hard drive 'sda' being cloned to hard drive 'sdb'.  You must ensure that the output hard drive, in this case 'sdb', is either the same or larger in capacity.  You can't clone a 40GB drive onto a 20GB drive.

You can also use 'dd' to create an image of your drive by running;

Code: [Select]

dd if=/dev/sda of=~/disk1.img

You can then compress the image using your favourite compression, ie gzip, bzip.

This saves space but will take a long time, varying on the size of hard drive.

To restore from an image, after uncompressing, run;

Code: [Select]

dd if=disk1.img of=/dev/sda

If you don't fancy making a complete copy of your OS you can make a backup list of all your installed packages.  This way on a clean install you can run the list through your package manager and it will install all the applications.

To create the backup run;

Code: [Select]

dpkg -get-selections > installed-software.log

And then to restore on a new system run;

Code: [Select]

dpkg -set-selections < installed.software.log

apt-get dselect-upgrade

I hope this helps!  Any problems let us know.

[andrea987]

Thank you, Glitch, much appreciated, and nice to 'meet' you, so to speak. Hope I won't drive you mad with my Linux misadventures as I did with Mark, lol.
I used the "df -h" command, it's all good. It's there a command to see the ram available (I fitted an extra 1GB ram, just curious to see if peppermint is seeing it)?
Also, I mentioned the volume controls (Fn key + arrows), for some reason the brightness icon/meter shows up, but the volume ones don't. Any reason why, or command to make it work? Thanks a lot, and all the best.

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

OK ..

Free space on SSD and SDcard - When you open the file manager (menu>File Manager), the  free space on the SSD will be displayed at the bottom of the file manager window in this format:-
Free space: 2.2GB(Total: 6.4GB)

Now still in the file manager, click on your SDcard in the left hand panel (so you can see it's contents) .. the free space of the SDcard should now be at the bottom.


Saving to USB - the only way I can think of to do this would be to use something like Clonezilla to clone the SSD to an image on the USB stick .. but as this would entail having 2 USB sticks (one for the image, and one for use as a bootable Clonezilla LiveUSB), then creating the image, then when you need to reinstall, booting to the Clonezilla LiveUSB, and reinstalling from the image .. I'm not sure it would save you much time and effort.

The Fn + Up/Down arrow keys *should* work for volume .. nothing is displayed to screen, but the volume should go up/down.
(use the volume panel applet to set the volume to 100% .. then hit Fn+down arrow .. now check the volume slider again .. it should have gone down)
If your problem is .. the volume doesn't seem to go loud enough .. let me know and I'll post instructions to install pulsaudio and pavucontrol, where you can increase the playback level.

and here we start, I hear you sigh...

Heh .. I wouldn't do this if I didn't enjoy it, so I'm more than happy to help where I can

and the command for checking RAM usage is:

Code: [Select]

free

Or you could look in the System Monittor which you'll find at
menu>System Tools>System Monitor
then look on the "Resources" tab

[glitch]

OK ..

Free space on SSD and SDcard - When you open the file manager (menu>File Manager), the  free space on the SSD will be displayed at the bottom of the file manager window in this format:-
Free space: 2.2GB(Total: 6.4GB)

How embarrassing... I actually forgot about just doing that!  Shows how much I use my file manager!  *facepalm*

@andrea - Nice to 'meet' you too.  Glad I could help!

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

@ glitch

Heh .. I also immediately started thinking of command line options, and had typed up a response, then suddenly remembered that


@ andrea987

Can I add something to glitch's response .. if you decide to use dd from the command line, be VERY careful with the syntax .. if for example you type if/of (input_file/output_file) in the wrong place it will happily destroy the data on your SSD .. take it from one who knows .. dd is a very powerful and very handy command line tool, but is also VERY unforgiving if you have a brain laps whilst entering the command.

Though it must also be said, that Clonezilla probably uses the dd command in the background .. so again if you select the wrong input and output locations it probably will destroy it too .. but it gives you more hints, such as drive sizes etc. and asks you to check your entries multiple times (giving you a chance to correct any mistakes) .. dd just does what you told it to do without question.

There's a reason "dd" is often referred to as an acronym for "Data Destroyer"

[andrea987]

Thank you guys, is great having 2 experts on the case! Yay, ram is recognised no problem, don't know if it makes a difference, though.
I thought of using clonezilla, but the process you described, Mark, does really look much more of an effort than just starting afresh. I might keep your instructions handy, and hope I won't need them again.
Yes, volume does go up/down pressing fn/arrows but for some reason icon doesn't come up...strange. One problem with the volume, though, is with Skype, even after following your instructions about the mic, it goes off every now and then. Not just the mic, speakers too! Any ideas why?
And I noticed that battery goes down much quicker than with Linpus, is it due to the slightly larger size of the OS?
Sorry for the trouble and thanks again!!!

[Mark Greaves (PCNetSpec)]

Extra memory, will make a difference when you have multiple applications open


Skype .. I don't use it, but you could try installing pulseaudio and see if that helps:

Code: [Select]

sudo apt-get install pulseaudio pulseaudio-utils pavucontrol

then REBOOT, and test skype.

You *may* need to go into Skype's Options>Sound Devices and change the settings to "Pulse Audio server (local)"


Battery .. have you installed the Jupiter power manager, and are you manually checking it's switching to Performance>Power Saving when you remove the power lead ?

[mako6]

And apart from more modern or better security, what is the difference or advantage with PP3 vs PP2? Is it possible PP2 works better with an old clunker like the AA1?
Seems to me there were alot less steps in the installation of 3, did they clean up issues w the AA1?