It took a couple of weeks (I had to move house) but it looks like I’m at a happy stage with the 1.6GHZ Atom Silverthorne  Dell Mini 12, it’s sociably streaming the BBC iPlayer and running Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala sharp, clear and snappy at 1280×800. Initial dabbling had me set with Jaunty 9.04 which although more than workable for server development wasn’t delivering the multi-use laptop  operating system interface I was after. The GMA workaround under Jaunty didn’t accommodate iPlayer too well and was giving jerky and disjointed playback, not what you want whilst chilling out to the ocean calm of Attenborough’s “Life”.

The truly great thing about the open source community is the speed at which bugs get resolved, a week ago the GMA500 graphics fix for Karmic 9.10 hinged around a convoluted procedure which would most certainly send your generic home user running for the promised land of Windows 7, however a mere few days later and we have a superb “single command” install from lucazade (LINK HERE), nice work fella, respect indeed.

So, yes, after initial system installation and tweaking I bumped up Ubuntu with the  usual suspects – Skype, a Twitter client (Thwirl, there’s no Tweetie yet for Ubuntu), Adobe Flash + AIR plus of course my regular LAMP back-end. As it is now the 12′s developed into a real gem for what was only a speculative £259 cheapo from eBay. Unfortunately there was extra annoyance with Wi-Fi after the latest Karmic updates for some reason didn’t allow activation of the STA Broadcom B43 drivers, however once again the community came through quickly with an easy fix (as follows)…

> Go to pool/restricted/b/bcmwl on Ubuntu CD or Live USB. Double click the .deb file & REINSTALL package.

(You would hope this virtual show stopper will be “officially” addressed asap but at least, for now, there’s an easy resolve).

And do I miss the MacBook Air? Dare I admit it, well, no, not at all. The Dell 12 is (roughly) the same size, same screen res and actually lighter than the Air, plus I’m £500 better off. Not to be sniffed at. Obviously it doesn’t run Mac OSX but I didn’t buy it as a hackintosh, I have my real Mac @ home for OSX goodness.

*UPDATE* – I’m actually only £370 better off as now as I’ve just bought another eBay special, well, you know how it is, and £130 was cheap for a G5 PowerMac. Anyone want a G4 Mac Mini? Good price

**DRIVER UPDATE**

Due to a change of circumstance I eBayed the Dell Mini 9 last week. Don’t get me wrong, it had been, and was still, superb as a cheap little Ubuntu dev box to SSH into however now I’m “on-site” at the Leeds office certain days of the week it just wasn’t a viable option to work on all day, cool as it was that mini keyboard was just too small for anyone larger than a woodland elf.

So, enter the Dell Mini 12, the “big brother” of the 9. I was looking forward to getting to grips with it and didn’t foresee any problems (famous last words). Priced well at £259 I was left with an agreeable buffer of beer tokens after also eBaying the MacBook Air for £675 (a bargain even if I say so myself). It arrived in good time and on opening the box I was pleased with the size and weight, in fact it was perfect and I couldn’t wait to install Karmic 9.10 RC on it in readiness for the final release the same week, I’d “unetbooted” the a USB stick a few days earlier so in it went.

To cut a long story short(er) the 12 comes with Intels popular GMA500 graphics chip which above Ubuntu 8.04  causes a right headache as Intel haven’t produced any official drivers (nor do they intend to). Foolishly I’d taken the eBay listing spec “as was” and was of the impression it had the Intel GMA950 on board, had this been the case I wouldn’t have lost two days of my life trying to get it going.

Anyway, here I am two days later and with vastly increased Dell laptop & associated Ubuntu driver knowledge. It IS possible to get the GMA500 fired up on Karmic but in the end I opted for the still-complex-but-easier Jaunty procedure, my imminent needs are for a lightweight Ubuntu laptop providing a mobile LAMP for groupware development at the back end with a useable 1280×800 laptop/desktop at the front for general day to days, as it is now the relevant buttons are pushed.

For those who may find themselves in the same boat here’s the run down to get things sorted on a clean install of Jaunty 9.04 (or Mint 7). It’s good for the Mini 10′s also. Looking at the list as it is now I find it hard to believe there’s two days of head scratching there. Open Terminal and..

$ sudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ubuntu-mobile.list

..add the following content to the newly created file and save..

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mobile/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

..next (typing “Y” when prompted)..

$ sudo apt-key adv –keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com –recv-keys C6598A30
$ sudo apt-get update
$ sudo aptitude install psb-kernel-source psb-kernel-headers
$ sudo reboot

..after reboot go back into terminal and..

$ sudo aptitude install xserver-xorg-video-psb poulsbo-driver-2d poulsbo-driver-3d
$ sudo reboot

..that’s it, not too bad really when you get into it. Feel free to contact me if you have any bother.

Having previously dabbled with Moblin on my Dell Mini 9 I was obviously most interested in the Ubuntu “developer” version (as recently offered up for purchase on the 10v’s) so I pulled it down from the Dev Wiki and installed it.

I used Ubuntu’s quick and easy usb-imagewriter to create the key and as you would expect with it being a tailored Dell netbook release it dropped onto the Mini 9 with no problems at all, everything worked including the Wi-Fi (which wasn’t seen during previous dabbles with the standard and less together Karmic-Moblin-Remix)

It’s certainly a different experience at the front end but the more you use it the more it makes sense (for me anyway) and once you get to grips with slick little nuances like using the “pin” to tag items & web pages to your zone (MyZone) you get it even more and really start zipping about.

Setting up mail was seamless with simple end-space cleaner than anything I’ve seen in a long while (perhaps ever), in fact the whole Moblin OS itself is bright and thoughtfully simple with funky designed solid little drop shadowed icons for all apps and satisfyingly responsive delivery (VERY responsive).

Delving deeper was equally as rewarding and after updating the installation I was most impressed to see a fully populated Tasksel list offering not only every server module but every flavour of Ubuntu available to upgrade the installation, quite surprising as UNR’s I’ve played with in the past offer nothing as extensive and useful (but I suppose who’s going to use a Dell Mini as an Ubuntu server….just me then?). I’m planning to do some LTSP (Terminal Server) R&D with the back end so stuck SSH on for access from the MacBook Air, I do seriously love the Dell but admittedly the keyboard is just a touch too compact for anything other than a few emails and Tweets from latte world.

In my previous post I did say I had doubts as to whether I’d actually be that interested in Moblin as a usable daily OS however it’s certainly caught my eye for just being “fun”. Even without the incredibly useful dual-purpose server side offerings of full blown Ubuntu in the background it offers a most attractive and distinctly refreshing interface up front. The iPhone wowed us with it’s gestures but I think Moblin has just as much mileage once it settles into it’s obvious netbook niche. For me it’s a revelation, fresh fun up front but with server tools there when I need them, it makes the little Dell even more special than it already was(is).

Compared to other NBR’s Moblin presents us with a completely different UI experience. NB OS’s like EasyPeasy and even Ubuntu’s own NBR just operate like a condensed over sized start menu to me, a feel further reinforced by certain upsized menu icons which having lost their integrity appear pixelated, a small detail perhaps but still something which spoils UI continuity. Moblin is also quick, very quick, I installed it on my Dell Mini 9 and in all honesty it’s the fastest operating system I’ve ever used – on any computer, some boast for a lowly 1.6ghz Atom based unit with 1GB RAM.

As you can see from the presentation video Moblin doesn’t function the way a desktop OS does, and why should it, that’s not the aim. I’m not what you’d call a regular Netbook user as rather than it supplementing a nice latte and an afternoon cake I have mine fired up indoors 24/7 for Ubuntu server development & LAN web caching, and although SSH is my preferred method of access I do realise there’s no need for an all singing all dancing desktop when you’re out and about, you just need to be able to check a few emails, view a website or two and keep on top of Twitter (OK, and maybe tweak a few docs). Size and weight are obviously a consideration and yes, although the majority of Netbook keyboards would still tax the nimble fingers of your average woodland sprite they’re still quicker to type on than the single character entry of an iPhone, which can be a chore even for Tweeting.

I like Moblin, I like it a lot. V2 is obviously still in BETA and requires a few boxes to be ticked behind the scenes (it didn’t pick up the Dell Wi-Fi card) but it’s damned close to a full blown release and is going to offer envisioned impact for early adopters when it hits. The main contributory factor for Netbooks not taking off as expected was a mindset for use as just a smaller desktop machine, which they aren’t. Running a cut down desktop OS merely offered a somewhat unidentifiable unit of reduced functionality rather than an enabling device for an emerging niche. Moblin feels different, it runs differently, it presents applications in an ingenious way through inspired methods of interface usability and yet underneath still sits on the inherent stability of Linux (as does OSX with UNIX).

I’m not completely convinced I’d use it myself (as I say I run my Netbook for more left field uses) however I did notice somewhat surprisingly on checking the Ubuntu-Karmic version that Tasksel offered a full range of server side modules for installation at the back end. Whether or not such broad flexibility will still be present in the final release remains to be seen as there are no such options in present and previous Ubuntu NBR’s, if so it would certainly open up potential for a most interesting dual purpose little computer. My Dell Mini may yet enjoy some fresh air.

During my on-going crusade for open desktop solutions I’m quite regularly met with blank looks and confused queries as to what Ubuntu is, I find myself re-pitching the “…it’s an operating system for your computer just like Windows but free…” routine with added justification tagged on highlighting it’s UNIX heritage (for those geeky enough to appreciate computing history), it’s resulting inherent stability and the whole emanated positivity of it’s community created open code base, however with Linux still sub 5% of the global market for operating systems there are some days you really do feel like you’re up against it, but other days, like yesterday, you’re given a real boost.

What better supportive boost could there be than one of the biggest manufacturers of PC’s in the world upgrading selected areas of their popular netbook and laptop product line to ship with the very latest flavour, yes, Dell’s US website is now offering the superb Mini 10V and Inspiron 15n with Ubuntu 9.04 pre-installed, nice one Dell.

Dell have a recent history of interest for Ubuntu and most certainly get my vote as commended innovators “on the case”. I run a self configured Dell Mini 9″ development server alongside the MacBook Air and it’s a real gem, in fact as previously mentioned in another post I honestly wonder how I ever managed without it. Aside from snappy DNS and Proxy caching (to assist with a shamefully poor shared Wi-Fi internet link) it runs a fully blown LAMP stack which again (due to the dodgy Wi-Fi) is invaluable to me, for example this TMG WordPress site was developed on it one day and quickly uploaded the next, much easier and quicker than having to work live up through a flaky connection which continually times out during the simplest of edits (and drives you nuts as a result, a man can only work with so many “autosaves”).

An Ubuntu Dell laptop is cheaper than a Windows version, it’s more stable and just *cooler* all round. Click the header  image for more information (and to order yours).

As has been the case with me over the past two years I’m once again in a rented apartment at the mercy of someone else’s Wi-Fi with no resulting control or access to the router. It’s all somewhat limiting should I wish to dabble in any external DynDNS malarkey (which I do) but I get by SSH-ing around the LAN to the wondrous little Dell Mini 9″ and it’s certainly a notch up from running a virtual machine on the MacBook Air, in fact it’s actually a most useful set up and a really don’t know how I ever managed before.

The landlord here has been most accommodating and credit to him has tried to arrange my own connection, however due to a six week string of banal events revolving around the comms guys continually turning up at No.4 instead of No.11 (me) we’ve given up and canceled the request, fair enough, I’ll save €15 a month and the knock on effect of doing so has stuck another feather in the Mini’s cap for use as a DNS caching unit.

For those who aren’t sure what I’m on about basically a DNS server is a special “network” computer which translates IP addresses to recognisable names (and vice versa), i.e when you type www.google.com into Firefox a combination of DNS servers translate behind the scenes and deliver the search page to you from the actual IP address of Google (66.102.9.105), the server also remembers addresses it’s visited and keeps a record of them to speed up delivery for future requests.

The pipe to the outside world here tops out at just under 2MB (on a good day) however it’s connected through the pool.einsundeins.de domain which isn’t the most dynamic, couple that with a stretched Wi-Fi signal and things become a touch laborious at certain times of the day, so I thought I’d try a bit of local DNS caching to see if I could help things along.

Your computer at home (or at work) invariably makes it’s “DNS” calls to your ISP’s servers out on the internet, this process is relatively quick but obviously not as quick as if it were pinging a unit sat on your local network and with Ubuntu this is very easy to set up using something called BIND9 (Berkley Internet Naming Daemon Version 9). By default Bind is configured to act as a caching server however you need to tweak a few settings so it’s relative to itself and knows where to go to look up un-cached domain names it doesn’t know about (forwarders).

The first thing to do is fix the IP of the unit you’ll be using from DHCP to static, once done install BIND..

sudo apt-get install bind9

..next type..

sudo nano /etc/bind/named.conf.options

..uncomment the “forwarders” section and add the following (I use OpenDNS IP’s, OpenDNS is superb)..

forwarders {
208.67.220.220;
208.67.222.222;
};

..save the file.

Now we need to edit the /etc/resolv.conf file so it knows where to find the “namerservers” (including itself), at the command line type..

sudo nano /etc/resolv.conf

..and add/make sure the file reads as follows..

nameserver 127.0.0.1
nameserver 208.67.220.220
nameserver 206.67.222.222

..close the file and save then restart BIND..

sudo /etc/init.d/bind9 restart

That’s it, you’re done.

To test delivery times open a terminal and dig the URL of a website you haven’t visited before, for example..

dig www.ubuntu4business.com

Check the query time then execute the command again, see the difference? Admittedly it’s only milliseconds we’re dealing with here but you WILL notice a boost.

The beauty of this solution is that it provides a browser boost to any type or any amount of computers on your LAN, it’s a great quick, easy and cheap solution for both home and business, just point all primary DNS entries at your new caching unit’s IP address and away you go. My IMAP mail account performance has been painful for the past few months with continuing hangups ranging from folders not displaying to general time outs but now it’s happy and snappy again.

Mobile server development can be tricky, or do I mean mobile development for servers? A few weeks ago it would have been the latter however thanks to the superb little Dell Mini 9 I can now deliver both whilst simultaneously sipping a nice latte in the Cafe “Tous les Jours” across the street

Presently ensconced as I am for a couple of months in the contemporary and alluring area of Prenzlauer Berg in the new East of Berlin my initial idea was to pull server development out of VMWare Fusion on the increasingly tired MacBook Air over to some real hardware I could leave powered up 24/7 in the background *doing stuff*, the plan involved a recently purchased Mac Mini G4 which I intended to use headless as the Ubuntu Server box, the less mirrored 9.04 PPC version was readily available so I loaded it up before I came, it was impressively quick too and after a year of patience with struggling VM instances I was really looking forward to getting down to business with it.

Anyway, as is the case with my life over the past two years things didn’t pan out as expected, predominantly down to the lack of a hard-wired internet connection in the apartment, there’s Wi-Fi sporadically drifting in and out but with a flaky up and down signal varying anywhere between 0.3 and 1MB things weren’t that conducive from the start, yes the Mac Mini has Wi-Fi but with no monitor and a text based server install of 9.04 sat on it there wasn’t a hope in hell of getting that fired up, OK then, time to create a plan B.

Plan B came in the shape of a refurb Dell Mini 9 off eBay and a view to utilise the internal Wi-Fi network infrastructure, however as this is the Rich B of today once again things didn’t go exactly as I hoped. The poor link to the outside world I could have coped with however when the Mini 9 arrived the discovered lack of any internal routing whatsoever around the already lacking network meant there was no Webmin, no local Apache browsing, not even any SSH, and as for syncing my wireless iPod Touch apps, forget it, not ideal, my I.T can’t communicate, snookered again.

Internet connectivity is now booked for this Thursday and even though I’ve lost almost three weeks I’ve managed to occupy myself and I’m now just hoping it comes together, what work I could do with the Mini has actually being quite upbeat, albeit just not “server” orientated.

Firstly I stuck full blown 9.04 on it so I could further install the server tools (there’s no tasksel option from the 8.04 netbook remix), this was quite straightforward and just involved a bit of Unetbootin to my spare USB pen drive. Once fired up I was super impressed to find out all the essentials worked straight off the bat and after a few codec tweaks plus installs of Twitux, Thunderbird, Skype & VLC I began to realise what a great little unit it was becoming, as such I took it for an afternoon out across the road to “Tous les Jours” for some latte drinking and review writing, 3+ hours later I returned to the apartment with a reported 1 hour battery life still backed up, very impressive to say the least, especially as I’d had the W-Fi on continually sucking away at their ego bashing 3.5MB free connection, were I using the MacBook Air I’d have had to go back for a re-charge and long missed the finalising session and leisurely cup of afternoon Earl Grey.

I’ve since stuck DropBox on the little beast (an idea I had during the 1st latte) so I can keep things in sync with the Air and although the 9 only comes with a potentially limiting 8GB SSD (of which it reported 3.5GB free btw) I just pointed things at my 64GB SpaceLoopXL pendrive, I could use a card in the SD slot of course but I just don’t have one and don’t really see any need, the SpaceLoop is fine.

So, that’s it for now, at least it’s primed and ready for Thursday and I have no doubt it’s going to be gem for server dev also, so much so it’s all really got me thinking about increased potential for SSD storage as an option for servers. SSD’s are quiet, energy efficient, super quick and I’m wondering how long it will be until the first fully SSD’d server room get’s exposure and how much reported air con resource it will save as a result of losing all those mechanical spinning monsters? The Mini 9 also runs Vuze and I’ve noted after it sitting there all night working away with the lid shut come morning when re-opened there’s nothing heated or untoward going on and it’s as cool as it was when I said goodnight, figuratively (of course), contrary to what people may think I don’t talk to my computers (although I will take them for a latte if they’ve been good).

There’s obviously quite a bit of recycled information on the internet and this review is in part just that, as well as also being part speculation and part *sum* of it’s parts, hopefully (or at least partly anyway)….err….yes….

The Apple Tablet then, hopeful geek myth or concept changing portable shortly to emerge from the reality defining vortex of Steve Jobs designer distortion field? Personally I’d like to think the latter and there’s plenty of evidence stacking up around development of such a product to reinforce an imminent release, including a reported suicide due to a lost prototype (or was it indeed industrial espionage gone wrong?), whatever the story things are getting quite serious about what seems to be just an overgrown iPod Touch….or is it?

Mobile I.T (mobility?) is indeed *it* these days, so, let’s step into the rapidly moving world of speculative future tech for a moment to discuss the potential for such a mid-level take anywhere device as depicted in the opening mock up shot.
Mid-level? That would be selling it short for a start, the mighty and forever crisp Apple would never bring out something mediocre just to fill a gap, if they did we’d already be coffee shop surfing on our dinky Mac Netbooks, no, it’ll be something different (*cough*), something incredibly groovy and something we’ll all wet ourselves over and immediately desire to fill the newly created void in our resultantly lacking suite of media I.T and personal gadgetry (well, some of us), but hold on, just what’s the low down on such a unit anyway, what’s it’s attraction and who would use or buy it? (aside from the demented “We’ll buy anything with an Apple logo on it” Mac fanbase).

Well, as it goes me for one (if I could afford it), admittedly I am indeed part fanboy but also a broad and long time user who both enjoys & realises improved technology slots where apparent. From Linux server down (or up?) to my iPod Touch and across most things in between (albeit strictly Unix based I may add) I’m most certain a Mac Tablet would give my (superb) Ubuntu Dell Mini 9 more than a run for it’s money (were the money not a deciding factor of course). I like the look and idea of an optional on-screen keyboard (my touch screen intuition has been steered and honed over the past few years to want and expect more) and from previous posts lamenting the sad loss of 12″ vinyl it’s no surprise I also relish the idea of re-invented album artwork on an expanded and larger scale (apparently codenamed “Cocktail”), 10″ is a good size for portability (a netbook for me isn’t a netbook if it’s over 10″) and solid state storage has come on so much even in just the past year I’m sure it would pack a 128GB drive as standard, Wi-Fi of course would most likely kick out and pull in over 802.11n (which does make a difference).

However, it’s the unknown and unimagined which are Apple’s forte and who knows what re-packaged re-inventions of the wheel they may have in store for us to ice the tablet cake (you’d expect it to be direction aware, but what else?). Whatever cards are presently hidden up the proverbial black sleeve of Mr Jobs you just know you’re going to wonder how life ever existed before he slipped them out to reveal a five Ace hand we instantly accept as the norm, after all, even the staunchest PC user has an iPod these days and if they say they don’t want one they’re either lying, deluded or just arrogantly putting off the inevitable.