Jürgen and Michael started this (it seems like everybody is getting a netbook these days), and so I continue by posting my netbook setup as well.
I could get all hardware components except the built-in Bluetooth chip to work with very little trouble. The bluetooth chip is supposed to work in Ubuntu Intrepid, so I guess that should also be solved, soon. I’m using a USB bluetooth dongle for now. For details, please have a look at the page I filled out in the Linux Laptop Wiki or the Dell Mini article in my Wiki.
I’m using Gentoo Linux (~x86) on the netbook just as on my other computers (why would I choose something else?). To help with the compiling, I set up distcc in a VM on my company desktop. Even without that, the small machine is astoundingly fast. The 16 GB SSD’s low access latency kicks ass: for example system startup, where many small files scattered throughout the “disk” need to be read, takes a mere 20 seconds (from grub to KDM being ready to receive the password for login). Suspend to RAM also just works (with gentoo-sources, but probably also with vanilla-sources), and the system resumes automatically when opening the lid. The battery lasts quite long, too (see my small battery consumption test) and the device is completely silent at all times - so all in all, I’m very satisfied with this little device.
Last week I bought two additional no-name el cheapo power supplies for a total of 180¥ (20€ / $26) and put them into the places where I spend most of my time, so I never need to carry the bulky thing around 
Well, and here is the obligatory screenshot:
Last night I ran a quick test on how long my new Dell Inspiron Mini 9’s battery would last under “normal netbook workload”.
Details:
- OS: Gentoo Linux (what else?
)
- Running programs: KDE 4, Konqueror, Thunderbird (fetching mail via IMAPS every 5 minutes)
- Conditions:
- Wireless connection to Internet, shell script kills and reloads Konqueror with three websites every two minutes (emulating a user who browses the WWW).
- Display set to lowest brightness level, screensaver / standby / etc. deactivated so that it was switched on all the time
Data capturing:
The ‘remaining capacity’ value from /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state and a timestamp were written to a file every minute:
#!/bin/bash
LOG="/home/pn/batterylog"
echo "Battery log, started $(date)" >$LOG
while ((1))
do
TIME=$(date "+%s")
REMAINING=$(grep "remaining capacity" /proc/acpi/battery/BAT1/state | cut -b 26- | cut -d' ' -f1)
echo "$TIME $REMAINING" >> $LOG
sync
sleep 60
done
Results:
The battery lasted a little longer than 4 hours and 50 minutes which means approx. 6.7 watts average power consumption while browsing the web over WLAN.
This time I decided to use OpenOffice Calc to create the graph - here is a screenshot of it:
(And here is the spreadsheet, if you’re interested: Dell Mini battery consumption log (Spreadsheet))
Since I moved my laptop to the new OpenRC init framework, my GPRS connection stopped working. At first I didn’t know what needed to be changed, but after having a careful look at /usr/share/doc/openrc/net.example and adjusting the proposed ppp chat script, I got it up and running again. Here is my configuration:
### GPRS ###
config_ppp0=( "ppp" )
link_ppp0="/dev/rfcomm0"
pppd_ppp0=(
"noauth" # Do not require the peer to authenticate itself
"debug"
"local" # Ignore carrier detect signal from the modem
"defaultroute" # Make this PPP interface the default route
"usepeerdns" # Use the DNS settings provided by PPP
"lcp-echo-interval 15" # Send a LCP echo every 15 seconds
"lcp-echo-failure 3" # Make peer dead after 3 consective
# echo-requests
"lock" # Lock serial port
"115200" # Set the serial port baud rate
"crtscts" # Enable hardware flow control
)
chat_ppp0="
ABORT BUSY
ABORT ERROR
ABORT 'NO ANSWER'
ABORT 'NO CARRIER'
ABORT 'NO DIALTONE'
ABORT 'Invalid Login'
ABORT 'Login incorrect'
'' AT
TIMEOUT 5
OK 'ATH'
OK 'ATE1'
OK 'AT+CGDCONT=1,\"IP\",\"cmnet\"'
OK 'ATD*99#'
TIMEOUT 60
CONNECT ''
TIMEOUT 5
~-- ''
"
