Australian PC User contributing editor
UserOS Netbook 8.10 Beta arrives in March 2009 PC User
PC User’s latest operating system hits the stands today. Aimed at new low-cost netbooks but also ideal for standard notebooks and desktop PCs, UserOS Netbook 8.10 Beta contains lots of extras including built-in drivers for WiFi and webcams for the MSI Wind and the Asus Eee PC.
Now given Canonical itself still hasn’t come out with a netbook-centric Linux distro, we’re being a bit ambitious but so was UserOS Home Server and that turned out a treat.
More importantly, UserOS Netbook 8.10 Beta is still a full-function general-purpose Linux operating system that will happily work on desktops and notebook computers.
It comes with notebook specific features like CPUGearBox 0.6.0, the latest version of my power management interface as well as the first Linux version of RockPod 2009, our do-everything audio-video converter.
There are 25 extra features and apps built into the OS but due to reader demand, the whole OS still fits onto a single 700MB CD-R disc, so it’s fine for older PCs as well.
UserOS Netbook 8.10 Beta is based on Canonical’s Xubuntu 8.10 distro but with enough extras to make it a worthwhile desktop replacement for your old (or even new) Windows PC.
It will only be available on the March 2009 issue of PC User, which is out today – so don’t miss out!
Similar Posts:
- UserOS Ultra 9.10 – out next week in PC User April 2010 issue
- Next UserOS operating system to have 3G support
- USerOS Extreme 9.04 – out now on the October 2009 issue of PC User
- New UserOS column – starting May 2010 issue of Australian PC User
- UserOS Ultra 8.10 – get your ideas in
- Install UserOS Netbook 8.10 Beta or Ubuntu onto a USB flash drive
- PC User October 2010 issue – UserOS Select 10.04
- UserOS ULTRA 7.10 – any downloads?
- UserOS Extreme 9.04 – coming to October 2009 PC User
- REVIEW – Asus Eee Box 202
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Darren Yates on February 4, 2009 at 2:04 pm, and is filed under Uncategorized. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
about 1 year ago
like i said on another page
installs fine on my 6gb 701 asus eee all works fine
BUT the auto update after downloading and installing 190 files and pakages killed the wireless lan so im staying away from the auto update
Good OS though plays all the stuff a 701 wont divx xvids etc
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about 1 year ago
worked again after a fresh install of course
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about 1 year ago
hi i purchased the latest march edition of PC user had trouble getting the userOS.10 to install properly
now i had an older ubuntu 8.04 version on my eeepc 900 series net book and after much trial and error i found this old site i used when i had the same issue with ubuntu 8.04
http://www.ewanspence.com/blog/2008/11/21/installing-ubuntu-netbook-remix-on-the-asus-eee-pc/
now i did exactly as he wrote
* When you run the Ubuntu installer (which kicks in automatically after booting from the USB key), if you are duplicating my set up then you want to do a Manual setup of the two disks (assuming you have a 901, which I do). Delete all existing partitions on sda (the 4GB) and sdb (the 16GB).
* Choose sda as / (and format as ext3)
* Choose sdb as /home (an format as ext3)
* Now go through the rest of the installation process, but don;t alter the grub bootloader settings (ignore the advance menu options).
* You may not need to do as many edits and tweaks as I did for the SD card install.
it now looks like its working fine for my setup i have 4 gb inbuilt and 8gb sd card my home is on the 8gb and root is on the 4gb
hope this will help all those that try this distro out
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about 1 year ago
Hi Darren,
I just picked up myself a fujitsu lifebook and remembered the pc user issue with the netbook os. though when re-reading the article you made clear that you only included drivers for certain netbooks. I would like to keep the functionality of the bluetooth and touchscreen etc (yet escape the pre-installed vista) but have been unable to find info on getting these supported on your OS. Are you likely to be releasing future versions with these features? I wouldn’t know where to start trying to plug in my own touchscreen software…
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Darren Yates Reply:
September 1st, 2009 at 8:32 pm
Derek,
We’ve just released our new OS – UserOS Extreme 9.04 – it’s available in the October 2009 issue out today. Now I can’t promise that it does have all of the drivers available but version 9.04 is more likely to than 8.10. The problem is that at the time 8.10 came out, there were few netbooks and fewer drivers. Now that 9.04 is available, I think the driver support is much better. However, I cannot guarantee it. As for future versions of UserOS Netbook, we may not produce any more because of the complexity of the driver issue with netbooks. That OS was a lot of work just to get the Eee PC and Wind netbooks working and there are so many more netbooks available today that if we had to find/compile/install drivers for everything, we’d never get it finished.
However, 9.04 may work – I’ve found it has more on-board than I expected. For example, it works with Leadtek’s Winfast DTV Dongle Gold DTV tuner (I was watching the Ashes Cricket using it and Extreme 9.04 and it worked a treat). So it may have better driver support built in. I just can’t guarantee it.
Cheers,
Darren.
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