25
Review: HP Mini 1010NR
About a month ago I picked up an HP Mini 1010NR. This netbook has been serving me pretty well over the last month.
The Specs:
1.6 Ghz N270 Intel Atom
512MB of Ram
8gb SSD drive
This is a pretty standard setup and I’ll get more into some of the other hardware in a second.
The laptop is pretty powerful, the only thing lacking in my case is the RAM but that’s fairly easy to upgrade.
It’s keyboard is a little cramped but not nearly as bad as some that I’ve played with at the local Buy More 
As soon as I got it I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix on it and that was a really good decision. The 1010NR runs it fast even with only 512MB of RAM and it detected all the hardware flawlessly. The webcam worked out of the box, the sound, even my USB headset was detected correctly by the Pulse audio server.
There is a strange button by the tack pad that disabled it when you press the button. I think this is because HP assumed the the Mini’s layout is so cramped that you might accidentally hit the mouse when you’re typing but I leave the track pad enabled all the time and I haven’t run into this issue yet.
Ubuntu Remix also seems to work ok with the sleep and hibernate functions but sometimes when you open the lid from a suspend it will shut off or resuspend for some reason. Not a huge deal, as you just resume it with the power button and things are normal again. This happens about 20% of the time.
My biggest gripe at the moment is the wifi card. The card is a Broadcom BCM4312b/g now most people won’t care about this but this card does not seem to support monitor mode. So if you expect to use the HP Mini 1010NR for wifi network diagnostics or war driving you’re probably out of luck for a little bit.
Some people might be able to get it working. I’ve read that it might be possible. I believe there are two versions of the BCM4312, one that is a/b/g and one that is b/g. My HP Mini 1010NR came with the b/g version so I think it has limited support for some features. If you can get Monitor mode working with this card let me know how you did it!
The battery life is par with other laptops and netbooks. I get about 2-3 hours depending on usage. The screen can be very bright which is nice to look at but it drains the battery fast if it’s all the way up.
Over all this is a pretty decent netbook if you can get it for super cheap. There are some things I would like to see like an illuminated keyboard and bluetooth(option mine doesn’t have).
21
Linux commands that make me happy
Ok, so at work I started writing a “Linux command of the day” on a whiteboard that was vacant. Some of them are pretty cool so I thought I would show them here.
Some of them are pretty elementary to linux gurus but I’ve been using linux almost exclusively for 2 years and some of these were new to me. This is probably because I’ve been using mostly gnome and am not fully dependant on the CLI.
1. $ sudo !!
What this does is run whatever the last command you typed with sudo in front of it. Very cool, I know I’ve typed some long command before and forgot to add sudo to it. This makes those mistakes a lot easier to deal with. (I got this from hak5.org…good web show).
2. $ route -n
I felt ashamed for not knowing this one but it will help you find what your gateway ip is.
3. $ nmap -v -O ipaddress
Ok this isn’t really a build in command but if you have nmap installed this gives you a port scan and OS information from an IP address.
11
Microsoft Patents sudo
Since I never get enough legalese from reading corporate documents on a daily basis, I’ve resorted to reading documentation that our wise patent office publishes. They’re pretty good about granting patents that stimulate intellectual growth and collaboration rather than hindering it as well as only granting patents for very unique, distinct concepts. When it comes to technology, they never grant patents to the undeserving. Which is why it makes complete sense that the patent office granted Microsoft a patent on sudo. Microsoft just deserved a go at some of the fun after the UNIX/Linux crowd had their way with sudo for 30 or 40 years.
And for the readers of Pointless Rants that don’t know me too well yet… </sarcasm>. 
2
I’m not getting a Zune because I use linux (a true pointless rant)
Today I was talking to Trevor and something dawned on me… I’m not buying a new Microsoft Zune because I use linux(Ubuntu). Years ago I bought one of the first generation 30gb Zune’s and it has served me well, until 2 years ago when I fully switched over to Linux. I tried to make it work with linux, I really did! I loaded up a VM with my old XP Pro installation and hooked up my media library to it (via shared folders), and this worked for a little while, but as time progressed something started to happen. The months rolled on an soon I realized that I wasn’t booting into this virtual machine I had built to sync my library…podcasts…vodcasts…all the changing media that I used to listen to was being left behind(well atleast as far as the Zune was concerned). Now I wasn’t any less up to date with the information that was contained in the media that I wasn’t syncing with the Zune, I just wasn’t using the Zune. Now I’m not sure if it was the extra step of firing up another operating system or if it was the hassle of trying to get USB to pass through to the VM, but I discovered something…..
28
Windows 7 RC – Update
After a couple weeks of using the RC I’ve gone back to Vista. That’s right, Vista at this point in time is better. I would rather be running the Beta of 7 than the RC. Don’t get me wrong it looks promising but it’s just not functional. Well it is if you don’t plan on using any new devices or plugging you keyboard or mouse into a different USB port. The RC has problems recognizing new devices or devices that were not plugged in when the OS was installed. For example, I tried plugging a USB Flash drive in so I could get some drivers for another computer so I could finish setting it up. I put the flash drive in and waited and waited and waited…. Nothing, Windows just sat there trying to install the device. I then tried it on another RC machine same thing. Needless to say I was annoyed and put the project on hold for a while. I continued doing other work for about 45 minutes when I was alerted by Windows that my device was ready to use. Forty-Five minutes!!!
27
Microkernel
I’ve been reading the MINIX textbook, which is on occasion somewhat amusing. The main focus is on microkernel OS design, the idea being that a tiny kernel is easier to maintain than a large kernel. As an example, the authors mention that MINIX 3 has about 4,000 lines of code in its kernel, which is much easier to eliminate bugs from than the millions of lines in a monolithic kernel, which makes sense.
You might think a couple of million lines of code would be impossible to maintain, and I expect you’re right. How about a couple hundred million? Microkernels really seem like the right direction to go if this is the direction monolithic kernels are going. What do you think?
26
Ubuntu 8.10 upgrade to 9.04 (Grub and ATI Issues)
Well I took the plunge this weekend and upgraded my ubuntu 8.10 laptop and ubuntu 8.04 desktop to ubuntu 9.04 and I ran into two big problems. First, my grub menu.lst wasn’t updated correctly and second my ATI video drivers weren’t working after the upgrade. I’ll paint a little picture of my situation just so that things all make sense. I’ve did not upgrade from 8.04 to 8.10 on my desktop due to VPN PPTP issues that 8.10 was having and I really needed the VPN capability but that’s all that was stopping me at the time. I did not need the VPN functionality on my laptop so I went ahead and upgraded that machine.
