Linux on Acer Aspire One 722-0369: II

In my last post about my Acer netbook, I wrote about how I had tested several distros on it and Fedora 16 LXDE was the only one that suited me for it.

Well, it’s changed.

The sad thing is, as much as I would like to like Fedora, it takes FOREVER to boot. Minute-and-a-half boot times are quite common, and for a machine with 4 GB RAM, dual core 1.3 GHz processor and an SSD that is just plain unacceptable.

I’ve been through dmesg time and time again. The main holdup can vary, but primarily it seems to be activating the wireless. After finding little on blacklisting wireless at bootup, and after borking the current system with a little too much experimentation, I decided it’s time for another change, back to one of the two distros I wanted most to run on it: Bodhi Linux.

Bodhi is based on Ubuntu LTS. The current version (Bodhi 1.4) is built on top of Ubuntu 10.04, and the next release (scheduled for June) will be based on the newest LTS, 12.04. Bodhi uses the Enlightenment DE, although you can install other DE’s if you wish. Enlightenment is… well, interesting. In some ways it feels like dated future tech (how’s that for nonsense?) but overall I find the experience to be polished and functional. On top of that, it’s extremely lightweight.

Enlightenment is almost infinitely customizable, and (gasp) there are GUI tools to do virtually everything related to customizing. Indeed, learning to navigate through the plethora of menus and options is one of the steepest learning curves I’ve found yet.

But because it’s infinitely customizable, you can make your desktop look pretty much ANY way you want. I’m going for a fairly minimal setup myself (easier on the li’l netbook) but you can get it as glitzy, gadgety, and ornate as you want. And many of the wallpapers available in the Art Wiki are absolutely stunning.

Bodhi also has a great community and an active forums. The project is definitely very alive, and that in itself is reassuring.

All told; I think I’ll be much happier with Bodhi (at least with its boot time- 26 seconds) than I was with Fedora, but we’ll see. Crunchbang still beckons alluringly… 🙂

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