Ubuntu Netbook Edition

It all started when I wanted to know what www-address does my new blu-ray player contact to at start up. That should've been easy enough: just install Wireshark and listen to the traffic in the air. After all, it's my WLAN so I'm free to tap it and can even turn the encryption off temporarily. Unfortunately it turns out that virtually no Windows Wi-Fi card driver supports the so-called promiscuous mode which means listening to traffic not addressed to the listening host. Luckily almost all Linux drivers do support it.

So, I figured I'd install some live distribution of Linux into a memory card, boot the computer from that, install Wireshark and get the job done. Fair enough, that was rather easy. I followed the instructions at the Ubuntu Netbook Edition download page, edited the BIOS settings so that booting from an USB device is allowed and so that something called the "quick boot" is disabled. Then I only had to figure out that to actually boot from an USB device (or the card reader) you'd have to hit ESC when the BIOS was starting up.

Now, the Ubuntu started fine, "apt-get install wireshark" worked perfectly and I managed to capture all sorts of traffic caused by the blu-ray player. Job well done, end of story, let's go home? Not quite. As we say in Finland, appetite comes with eating. I had had a small bite of Linux and now I wanted more. I figured I'd start with the screen resolution: it was set to 1024x768, which meant it was badly distorted because the native resolution of the screen is 1366x768. So I looked for some instructions for installing new drivers for the video chip, Intel GMA500, and found this one.

After doing the "sudo add-apt-repository" and "sudo apt-get" commands I restarted the computer, booted to Ubuntu again -- and was greeted with a white screen and an error message. Obviously the drivers didn't work that well. The Ubuntu crash reporting application refused to send an error report as there was a few hundred megabytes of outdated packages installed. So I tried updating everything using the Synaptic package manager, but the system brought it to my attention that there wasn't enough space for these updates in the memory card where I had installed Ubuntu.

At this point I should've stopped, booted back to Windows and erased Ubuntu from the memory card, but instead I got a better idea: I'd install Ubuntu to a free partition on the hard disk. After all, what could possibly go wrong? 

Well, a lot of things. For one, the Ubuntu Netbook Edition installer apparently overwrote the master boot record of the hard drive, rendering Windows unusable -- trying to boot to Windows would only bring up an error message and a recommendation to re-install the entire system. Right. Luckily ASUS had added a hidden 10 GB partition into the hard drive with an image of a working system. Also, it's just a netbook so I didn't have much stuff in it that I couldn't reinstall back later. A few photos maybe, but I wouldn't miss those.

So, the system restore can be launched at the boot up time and I did that. Surprisingly, it did absolutely nothing, besides probably erasing all my data. Ubuntu cannot read the mangled Windows partition either, otherwise I would've rescued all my data beforehand, of course. OK, so, now I had no Windows but an Ubuntu with a terrible resolution. Surely the video chip drivers would work once I updated all the outdated packages? Nope. I was greeted with the same white screen, and this time I didn't even get an error message. I could use it by launching a terminal and other programs from that but it isn't that much fun.

So now I've got a crippled netbook with a Linux system running from a memory card and no Windows and none of the data I previously had on my Windows installation. Luckily the Ubuntu on the memory card works fine, except for the bad resolution... Moral of the story? Don't install Ubuntu Netbook Edition on your Asus EeePC 1101HA if you plan to keep your Windows too. Also don't go messing around with the video chip drivers. Just use Ubuntu from a memory card or an USB disk if you must, but don't go beyond that.

New GMA500 drivers

After installing, trying and removing Portal yesterday I thought of the graphics card drivers and found out that there's a new version out. Intel calls it 5.0.0.2024 which is rather strange since the previous version was called 5.2.1!? This driver still has a newer date than the previous one and in the device manager it appears as version 8.14.10.2024 which is greater than before (8.14.10.2020). No visible improvement in the Windows Experience Index figures though, but go install it anyway.

Portal

For a few more days, until May 24th, the mega-popular game of Portal is free on Steam. I downloaded it and tried it on my Asus EeePC 1101HA and found out, less surprisingly, that it is entirely unplayable with this hardware. I kind of guessed that when the Steam launcher displayed a message that the Valve database has never even heard of the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 500 graphics card. The game loads for ages, the sounds are jerky and the frame rate is about 1 frame per second, even with the lowest possible quality settings. Oh well, at least it has been tested now. However, I have no doubts that with proper hardware Portal is a great game anyway.

Tales of Monkey Island

In my previous post I made a note that while the Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition does run on the Asus EeePC 1101HA, you still have to fall back to the antiquated graphics at times because the graphics chip, Intel GMA500, just can't take it all. On this background I felt a little uncomfortable buying the Tales of Monkey Island because that one is fully in 3D, while the Secret of Monkey Island is completely in 2D. So I thought that if the computer cannot run a 2D game smoothly, could it run a 3D game at all? If nothing else then I could've played the Tales on my desktop computer anyway.

Luckily, I was worried in vain. Sure, you need to tune the game's graphical quality settings way down. The scale is from 1 to 10 and the game becomes playable at quality level 3 or 4. Tuning the resolution down to 800x600 is not a bad idea either, but after that the game works perfectly! The story and humor are still guaranteed Monkey Island quality and the voice actors as good as ever. I recommend.

New Windows Experience Index figures

When writing my previous blog entry about the graphics driver I found out that there's another new version of the driver available. In the Device Manager this version knows the number 8.14.10.2020 but on Intel's site it is known as version 5.2.1. Anyway, this update improved the Windows Experience Index figures again: the rating for gaming graphics rose from 2.4 to 2.7 and the rating for desktop graphics from 4.3 to 4.5. :)

Update your drivers

The Windows Update is a good way of keeping the system up to date, but it doesn't always contain all the updates, especially for device drivers. One of the key components of a computer is the graphics chip, Intel GMA500 in the EeePC 1101HA's case. It is not a very powerful chip so any performance improvements for it are welcome. The newest version when I got my netbook was 8.14.10.2019 but the Windows update only offers the version 8.14.10.1015 or something like that. It may not sound like a big jump but it actually improved the Windows Experience Index for desktop graphics from 2.9 to 4.3! Mind you, the scale is from 1.0 to 7.9. The number for gaming graphics was also improved, although very slightly, from 2.3 to 2.4.

To check the version of your driver, open Device Manager, locate 'Display adapters' and double click the Inter(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 500 below it. The driver version reads on the Driver tab.

If your driver is not up to date, direct your browser to the Intel Download Center. Download the win7.zip, extract its contents into a temporary location and run the Setup application. This installs the driver after a few dialogs. The screen will blink during the install, so don't be alarmed. When the setup completes check back in the Device Manager that it really updated the driver. You may now run the Windows Experience Index benchmark yourself to see the improved figures. :)