Accessibility of netbooks

Accessibility of netbooks

[Alastair Irving]

Hi All

I'm considering purchasing a netbook.  The 2 main ones which run linux 
seem to be  the Asus Eee Pc and the Acer Aspire One.  I was wondering if 
anyone on list has any experience of these.  They both run custom linux 
distros, so I would like to know how possible it is to get accessibility 
related software to run on them, i.e. speakup, brltty, emacspeak and 
orca.  Obviously I could install a different distro but this could lead 
to more problems regarding drivers for the hardware, etc.

I hope people don't mind me asking about all the accessibility related 
software on this list, it seems to be the most general purpose of the 
lists for the various programs and I wanted to avoid cross-posting to 
all of them.  The obvious questions seem to be



Many thanks

Alastair Irving

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Willem van der Walt]

I have an eee_pc and am running Ubuntu on it.
It comes with Zandrows which  I would not bother to try and get 
accessible.
I am mainly using  speakup, but also have Orca running on it.
As long as the braille display connects through USB I do not see why 
brltty would not work.
Yes, one has to tweak things a bit to work, but it can work.
I am using a normal usb keyboard with my eee as I struggle with its 
built-in keyboard.
HTH, Willem


On Thu, 16 Apr 2009, Alastair Irving wrote:

> Hi All
> 
> I'm considering purchasing a netbook.  The 2 main ones which run linux seem to
> be  the Asus Eee Pc and the Acer Aspire One.  I was wondering if anyone on
> list has any experience of these.  They both run custom linux distros, so I
> would like to know how possible it is to get accessibility related software to
> run on them, i.e. speakup, brltty, emacspeak and orca.  Obviously I could
> install a different distro but this could lead to more problems regarding
> drivers for the hardware, etc.
> 
> I hope people don't mind me asking about all the accessibility related
> software on this list, it seems to be the most general purpose of the lists
> for the various programs and I wanted to avoid cross-posting to all of them.
> The obvious questions seem to be
> 
> 
> 
> Many thanks
> 
> Alastair Irving
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 

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Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Daniel Dalton]

On Thu, Apr 16, 2009 at 11:06:01AM +0100, Alastair Irving wrote:
> Hi All

Hi,

>
> I'm considering purchasing a netbook.  The 2 main ones which run linux  
> seem to be  the Asus Eee Pc and the Acer Aspire One.  I was wondering if  

Yes, there is a debian wiki dedicated to the asus.

> anyone on list has any experience of these.  They both run custom linux  
> distros, so I would like to know how possible it is to get accessibility  
> related software to run on them, i.e. speakup, brltty, emacspeak and  

I'm thinking of buying one. Yes, don't bother with the custom distro,
install debian-eeepc or ubuntu... Debian eeepc from memory supports
brltty in the installation. Emacspeak should work. Speakup, I guess
there should be modules around, and no reason why orca shouldn't work.

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Gene Collins]

Hi Alastair.  I just bought an Acer Aspire One, which came with Windows
XP on it.  I used Partition Magic to repartition the hard drive, and
then made a bootable usb stick from a grml cd image.  Of course I had to
have eyes around to reset the bios, so that the machine would look at
the usb ports and flash drives as possible boot devices, before booting
from the hard disk.  It comes set up to boot from the hard disk first,
and there is a special boot menu you can get to by pressing the function
key, and f11, I believe, but I didn't want to always be hasseling with
that.  After that, the grml usb stick booted first time out of the box,
and I was able to use debootstrap to install Debian on the second
partition on the hard disk.

I then went out to kernel.org, got the latest kernel source, and Speakup
from the git repossitory, and custom built a kernel for my machine.  I
then borrowed inittab aned fstab files from another machine I have
access too, and customized them for the netbook.  The last step was
running lilo, which complained because /dev/sd contained a windows nt
file system which it wanted to modify but couldn't.  The solution was to
use the activate command to activate /dev/sda3, which is my root
partition for linux, and then run lilo.  After that, I edited lilo.conf,
and modified the "other" entry to point at /dev/sda2, which is the
windows xp partition.  /dev/sda1 is a vfat diagnostics partition.  My
home and swap partitions are extended partitions.  The results are quite
satisfactory, as I now have a dual boot capabile netbook, which boots
both Windows xp and Debian.  I wouldn't recommend this approach for the
novice user, since setting up and editing inittab, fstab, and lilo.conf
are not tasks to be taken on unless you know what you are doing.  The
bottom line is that I am running both Speakup and Orca with the espeak
software synthesizer.  I also have nvda, Nonvisual Desktop Access, an
open source screen reader for Windows up and running.  The linux system
properly recognizes the wireless card, the builtin network card, the
touch pad, the usb mouse, the webcam, the sound system, and the flash
drives.  This is not the machine with the 16 gig solid state drive, but
the one with the 160 gig hard disk.

When you build the kernel for your machine, if you decide to go theat
route, be sure to tell the kernel that you have a dual core processor. 
The processor is actually a 1.6 gig Intel Atom  processor, which conforms
to the dual core instruction set.  Linux happily recognizes that there
are two cpus.

For anyone thinking of buying one of these little machines, be aware the
the machine comes with no serial, no paralell, and no built in modem. 
There is no blue tooth either.  The term netbook, is quite descriptive. 
The only connectors are the rj45 network connector, three usb
connectors, a video connector, and the two sd flash drives.  Oh yeah,
one other thing.  If you are planning on expanding the memory from one
gig to two, I'd recomend having it done proffessionally.  It turns out
that you have to remove the mother board from the netbook to get at the
slot for the memory module on the bottom side of the mother board.

Perhaps my documenting of my experiences here will help others.  Have a
great day.

Gene Collins

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Glenn Ervin]

I have an Asus ePc, 7 inch screen with only a 4 gb internal drive, (SD 
card), and on that model, it was quite easy to up my memory from 512 to 1 gb 
by taking off a single cover on the bottom.
I just wanted folks to know that not all the Asus machines are as difficult 
to change the RAM, as apparently it is on the model that Gene has.
Glenn
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Gene Collins" <collins@gene3.ait.iastate.edu>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Thursday, April 16, 2009 8:49 AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility of netbooks


Hi Alastair.  I just bought an Acer Aspire One, which came with Windows
XP on it.  I used Partition Magic to repartition the hard drive, and
then made a bootable usb stick from a grml cd image.  Of course I had to
have eyes around to reset the bios, so that the machine would look at
the usb ports and flash drives as possible boot devices, before booting
from the hard disk.  It comes set up to boot from the hard disk first,
and there is a special boot menu you can get to by pressing the function
key, and f11, I believe, but I didn't want to always be hasseling with
that.  After that, the grml usb stick booted first time out of the box,
and I was able to use debootstrap to install Debian on the second
partition on the hard disk.

I then went out to kernel.org, got the latest kernel source, and Speakup
from the git repossitory, and custom built a kernel for my machine.  I
then borrowed inittab aned fstab files from another machine I have
access too, and customized them for the netbook.  The last step was
running lilo, which complained because /dev/sd contained a windows nt
file system which it wanted to modify but couldn't.  The solution was to
use the activate command to activate /dev/sda3, which is my root
partition for linux, and then run lilo.  After that, I edited lilo.conf,
and modified the "other" entry to point at /dev/sda2, which is the
windows xp partition.  /dev/sda1 is a vfat diagnostics partition.  My
home and swap partitions are extended partitions.  The results are quite
satisfactory, as I now have a dual boot capabile netbook, which boots
both Windows xp and Debian.  I wouldn't recommend this approach for the
novice user, since setting up and editing inittab, fstab, and lilo.conf
are not tasks to be taken on unless you know what you are doing.  The
bottom line is that I am running both Speakup and Orca with the espeak
software synthesizer.  I also have nvda, Nonvisual Desktop Access, an
open source screen reader for Windows up and running.  The linux system
properly recognizes the wireless card, the builtin network card, the
touch pad, the usb mouse, the webcam, the sound system, and the flash
drives.  This is not the machine with the 16 gig solid state drive, but
the one with the 160 gig hard disk.

When you build the kernel for your machine, if you decide to go theat
route, be sure to tell the kernel that you have a dual core processor.
The processor is actually a 1.6 gig Intel Atom  processor, which conforms
to the dual core instruction set.  Linux happily recognizes that there
are two cpus.

For anyone thinking of buying one of these little machines, be aware the
the machine comes with no serial, no paralell, and no built in modem.
There is no blue tooth either.  The term netbook, is quite descriptive.
The only connectors are the rj45 network connector, three usb
connectors, a video connector, and the two sd flash drives.  Oh yeah,
one other thing.  If you are planning on expanding the memory from one
gig to two, I'd recomend having it done proffessionally.  It turns out
that you have to remove the mother board from the netbook to get at the
slot for the memory module on the bottom side of the mother board.

Perhaps my documenting of my experiences here will help others.  Have a
great day.

Gene Collins

_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup




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Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Georgina Joyce]

Hi

I have both a 4Gb eeePC and the 160Gb Acer.  Neither would be accessible
by tinkering with the OS that was shipped with the machines originally.
I've installed debian on them but as you are already aware some fiddling
is required to get the hardware working.  I've just been reading about
what Ubuntu are doing in respect of netbooks.  But whether they've
stripped accessibility out or not I do not know.

Asus have really started something with the eeePC but other
manufacturers have taken the idea and advanced it.  The Acer is a really
nice machine and it's keyboard is a lot easier to use than the eeePC.

Happy Hacking!

 

On Thu, 2009-04-16 at 11:06 +0100, Alastair Irving wrote:
> Hi All
> 
> I'm considering purchasing a netbook.  The 2 main ones which run linux 
> seem to be  the Asus Eee Pc and the Acer Aspire One.  I was wondering if 
> anyone on list has any experience of these.  They both run custom linux 
> distros, so I would like to know how possible it is to get accessibility 
> related software to run on them, i.e. speakup, brltty, emacspeak and 
> orca.  Obviously I could install a different distro but this could lead 
> to more problems regarding drivers for the hardware, etc.
> 
> I hope people don't mind me asking about all the accessibility related 
> software on this list, it seems to be the most general purpose of the 
> lists for the various programs and I wanted to avoid cross-posting to 
> all of them.  The obvious questions seem to be
> 
> 
> 
> Many thanks
> 
> Alastair Irving
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
-- 
Gena

M0EBP

http://ready2golinux.com 

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Marcel Oats]

Hi, for what it's worth, and sorry to be a bit behind in the thread, 
I have installed Vinux 1.4 onto my EEEPC (seven inch 900 mhz model) 
and it does work, but is rather slow.  I have the default 
installation, that is to say I haven't trimmed it down at all.  GRML 
is better, though it can still be slow.  I think the problem relates 
to the flash disk.

Marcel

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Kerry Hoath]

I saw optimizations for the flash disks used in these machines on the 
eeeuser.com wiki.
Basically you need to change the default io schedular from deadline to 
something else i'd have to dig up the link.
Also you should update the journal commit time to reduce wear on the flash 
disk, this can be done with ext3 by adding
commit=30 to the mount options for the root fs, or by installing 
laptop-tools which can take care of this.
Regards, Kerry.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Marcel Oats" <moats@orcon.net.nz>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 7:35 AM
Subject: Re: Accessibility of netbooks


> Hi, for what it's worth, and sorry to be a bit behind in the thread, I 
> have installed Vinux 1.4 onto my EEEPC (seven inch 900 mhz model) and it 
> does work, but is rather slow.  I have the default installation, that is 
> to say I haven't trimmed it down at all.  GRML is better, though it can 
> still be slow.  I think the problem relates to the flash disk.
>
> Marcel
>
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Adam Myrow]

On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Kerry Hoath wrote:

> Also you should update the journal commit time to reduce wear on the flash 
> disk, this can be done with ext3 by adding
> commit=30 to the mount options for the root fs, or by installing laptop-tools 
> which can take care of this.

I thought it was a good idea to format a flash disk as EXT2 rather than 
EXT3, in order to minumize the wear.  As I understand it, the technology 
has a very limited life span compared to modern hard drives.  This is the 
big thing that is keeping solid-state drives from replacing hard drives. 
Once this is solved, I believe that all computers will eventually go to 
some sort of solid-state drive.  You eliminate moving parts, and I would 
think, should be able to eventually get tremendous speed out of such 
devices.

RE: Accessibility of netbooks

[erik heil]

-----Original Message-----
From: Adam Myrow <myrowa@bellsouth.net>
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 3:23 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Subject: Re: Accessibility of netbooks

On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Kerry Hoath wrote:

> Also you should update the journal commit time to reduce wear on the flash 
> disk, this can be done with ext3 by adding
> commit=30 to the mount options for the root fs, or by installing laptop-tools 
> which can take care of this.

I thought it was a good idea to format a flash disk as EXT2 rather than 
EXT3, in order to minumize the wear.  As I understand it, the technology 
has a very limited life span compared to modern hard drives.  This is the 
big thing that is keeping solid-state drives from replacing hard drives. 
Once this is solved, I believe that all computers will eventually go to 
some sort of solid-state drive.  You eliminate moving parts, and I would 
think, should be able to eventually get tremendous speed out of such 
devices.
_______________________________________________
Speakup mailing list
Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Gene Collins]

Hi Terry.  Well, this laptop has no fan, so it can't be loud.  The two
things I'm not happy with are battery life, only about two hours, even
when both cpus are throttled back to 800 mhz, and the fact that you have
to completely disassemble the machine in order to expand the memory. 
Other than those two minor inconveneiences, I love the machine. 
Obviously I wish it had a serial port for a hardware synth, but then I
knew before I bought it that it didn't.  What turned me on to this
little box was that a friend of mine had one.  Of course he isn't
running linux, but I liked the look of it.  And when Staples had one on
for 300 bucks, I couldn't say no.

I'm thinking about disabling the touch pad by taking the driver out of
the kernel, because it works to well.  It's awfully easy to accidently
tap the touch pad with your thumb while you are typing, and have the
mouse move you to somewhare you didn't intend in gnome, but for the most
part, it just involves learning not to touch the touch pad.

The bottom line is as I said, that I have a dual boot laptop, running
both windows xp and linux, and both the text console and gnome
environments are working just fine.  I particularly like the fact that
my laptop hotkeys work under gnome, and the two built-in sd drives are
nice.  The keyboard is small, but useable.  I'd give the box 9 out of
10.  Hope this helps, have a good one.

Gene

>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Adam Myrow <myrowa@bellsouth.net>
>Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 3:23 PM
>To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
>Subject: Re: Accessibility of netbooks
>
>On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Kerry Hoath wrote:
>
>> Also you should update the journal commit time to reduce wear on the flash 
>> disk, this can be done with ext3 by adding
>> commit=30 to the mount options for the root fs, or by installing laptop-tool
s 
>> which can take care of this.
>
>I thought it was a good idea to format a flash disk as EXT2 rather than 
>EXT3, in order to minumize the wear.  As I understand it, the technology 
>has a very limited life span compared to modern hard drives.  This is the 
>big thing that is keeping solid-state drives from replacing hard drives. 
>Once this is solved, I believe that all computers will eventually go to 
>some sort of solid-state drive.  You eliminate moving parts, and I would 
>think, should be able to eventually get tremendous speed out of such 
>devices.
>_______________________________________________
>Speakup mailing list
>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>_______________________________________________
>Speakup mailing list
>Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
>http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Buddy Brannan]

Hey Gene,

Sounds like you got the one with the three cell battery. Do yourself a  
favor and get the six- or even nine-cell battery. I got Melanie the  
nine-cell battery, and, while it does put the notebook at a bit of a  
tilt, it does increase the battery life by quite a lot. On Ebay I  
think I got it for $70. Direct from Hong Kong or Taiwan or somewhere  
like that. Not made by Acer, naturally but there ya go.

Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Raul A. Gallegos]

I agree 100% here on this one. I have the Asus EEE PC with the 6-cell 
battery as I didn't want to go with anything smaller. I can squeeze 6 or 
7 hours from the battery on a normal use. My wife has the MSI Wind, also 
with the 6-cell battery and can get around 5.5 to 6 hours.

Buddy Brannan wrote the following on 4/20/2009 11:00 AM:
> Hey Gene,
> 
> Sounds like you got the one with the three cell battery. Do yourself a 
> favor and get the six- or even nine-cell battery. I got Melanie the 
> nine-cell battery, and, while it does put the notebook at a bit of a 
> tilt, it does increase the battery life by quite a lot. On Ebay I think 
> I got it for $70. Direct from Hong Kong or Taiwan or somewhere like 
> that. Not made by Acer, naturally but there ya go.

-- 
Raul A. Gallegos -- http://www.asmodean.net


__________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4021 (20090420) __________

The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus.

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Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Terry D. Cudney]

Hi Gene,

   thanks for your reply!

   Several people have subsequently commented about the option of 6- or 9-cell batteries for this model. If you have a second battery, are they easily swapped on this model? without disassembling anything?

   Previously, I believe, you said that you used debootstrap to do the installation. Just wondering why you had to do this, since debian can be installed directly from a usb stick on a regular i386 or a64, at least. Is there any reason you couldn't install debian on this little Acer directly from usb?

   You mentioned boot options in CMOS to boot from a usb stick... Is there any option to boot from an SD (or CF) drive on there?

   Still looking at the possibilities...


   Thanks,

   --terry

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 08:25:56AM -0500, Gene Collins wrote:
> Hi Terry.  Well, this laptop has no fan, so it can't be loud.  The two
> things I'm not happy with are battery life, only about two hours, even
> when both cpus are throttled back to 800 mhz, and the fact that you have
> to completely disassemble the machine in order to expand the memory. 
> Other than those two minor inconveneiences, I love the machine. 
> Obviously I wish it had a serial port for a hardware synth, but then I
> knew before I bought it that it didn't.  What turned me on to this
> little box was that a friend of mine had one.  Of course he isn't
> running linux, but I liked the look of it.  And when Staples had one on
> for 300 bucks, I couldn't say no.
> 
> I'm thinking about disabling the touch pad by taking the driver out of
> the kernel, because it works to well.  It's awfully easy to accidently
> tap the touch pad with your thumb while you are typing, and have the
> mouse move you to somewhare you didn't intend in gnome, but for the most
> part, it just involves learning not to touch the touch pad.
> 
> The bottom line is as I said, that I have a dual boot laptop, running
> both windows xp and linux, and both the text console and gnome
> environments are working just fine.  I particularly like the fact that
> my laptop hotkeys work under gnome, and the two built-in sd drives are
> nice.  The keyboard is small, but useable.  I'd give the box 9 out of
> 10.  Hope this helps, have a good one.
> 
> Gene
> 
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Adam Myrow <myrowa@bellsouth.net>
> >Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 3:23 PM
> >To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> >Subject: Re: Accessibility of netbooks
> >
> >On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> >
> >> Also you should update the journal commit time to reduce wear on the flash 
> >> disk, this can be done with ext3 by adding
> >> commit=30 to the mount options for the root fs, or by installing laptop-tool
> s 
> >> which can take care of this.
> >
> >I thought it was a good idea to format a flash disk as EXT2 rather than 
> >EXT3, in order to minumize the wear.  As I understand it, the technology 
> >has a very limited life span compared to modern hard drives.  This is the 
> >big thing that is keeping solid-state drives from replacing hard drives. 
> >Once this is solved, I believe that all computers will eventually go to 
> >some sort of solid-state drive.  You eliminate moving parts, and I would 
> >think, should be able to eventually get tremendous speed out of such 
> >devices.
> >_______________________________________________
> >Speakup mailing list
> >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >
> >_______________________________________________
> >Speakup mailing list
> >Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> >http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
Name:	Terry D. Cudney
Phone:	705-812-4949
SIP: 8978@ekiga.net
E-mail:	terry@octothorp.org

Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like...
having a peeing sectionin a swimming pool.

Tired of technology? Check this out: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm

RE: Accessibility of netbooks

[Tom Moore]

Hi,
Don't know if you can boot from SD or CF on the netbooks, but another option
that is possible is pxe boot.

Tom
 

-----Original Message-----
From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca [mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
On Behalf Of Terry D. Cudney
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 3:43 PM
To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
Subject: Re: Accessibility of netbooks

Hi Gene,

   thanks for your reply!

   Several people have subsequently commented about the option of 6- or
9-cell batteries for this model. If you have a second battery, are they
easily swapped on this model? without disassembling anything?

   Previously, I believe, you said that you used debootstrap to do the
installation. Just wondering why you had to do this, since debian can be
installed directly from a usb stick on a regular i386 or a64, at least. Is
there any reason you couldn't install debian on this little Acer directly
from usb?

   You mentioned boot options in CMOS to boot from a usb stick... Is there
any option to boot from an SD (or CF) drive on there?

   Still looking at the possibilities...


   Thanks,

   --terry

On Mon, Apr 20, 2009 at 08:25:56AM -0500, Gene Collins wrote:
> Hi Terry.  Well, this laptop has no fan, so it can't be loud.  The two
> things I'm not happy with are battery life, only about two hours, even
> when both cpus are throttled back to 800 mhz, and the fact that you have
> to completely disassemble the machine in order to expand the memory. 
> Other than those two minor inconveneiences, I love the machine. 
> Obviously I wish it had a serial port for a hardware synth, but then I
> knew before I bought it that it didn't.  What turned me on to this
> little box was that a friend of mine had one.  Of course he isn't
> running linux, but I liked the look of it.  And when Staples had one on
> for 300 bucks, I couldn't say no.
> 
> I'm thinking about disabling the touch pad by taking the driver out of
> the kernel, because it works to well.  It's awfully easy to accidently
> tap the touch pad with your thumb while you are typing, and have the
> mouse move you to somewhare you didn't intend in gnome, but for the most
> part, it just involves learning not to touch the touch pad.
> 
> The bottom line is as I said, that I have a dual boot laptop, running
> both windows xp and linux, and both the text console and gnome
> environments are working just fine.  I particularly like the fact that
> my laptop hotkeys work under gnome, and the two built-in sd drives are
> nice.  The keyboard is small, but useable.  I'd give the box 9 out of
> 10.  Hope this helps, have a good one.
> 
> Gene
> 
> >
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Adam Myrow <myrowa@bellsouth.net>
> >Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2009 3:23 PM
> >To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> >Subject: Re: Accessibility of netbooks
> >
> >On Sat, 18 Apr 2009, Kerry Hoath wrote:
> >
> >> Also you should update the journal commit time to reduce wear on the
flash 
> >> disk, this can be done with ext3 by adding
> >> commit=30 to the mount options for the root fs, or by installing
laptop-tool
> s 
> >> which can take care of this.
> >
> >I thought it was a good idea to format a flash disk as EXT2 rather than 
> >EXT3, in order to minumize the wear.  As I understand it, the technology 
> >has a very limited life span compared to modern hard drives.  This is the

> >big thing that is keeping solid-state drives from replacing hard drives. 
> >Once this is solved, I believe that all computers will eventually go to 
> >some sort of solid-state drive.  You eliminate moving parts, and I would 
> >think, should be able to eventually get tremendous speed out of such 
> >devices.
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-- 
Name:	Terry D. Cudney
Phone:	705-812-4949
SIP: 8978@ekiga.net
E-mail:	terry@octothorp.org

Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like...
having a peeing sectionin a swimming pool.

Tired of technology? Check this out: http://www.shibumi.org/eoti.htm
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Re: Accessibility of netbooks

[Buddy Brannan]

Changing the battery is easy; it's only a matter of sliding one off  
and sliding the new one on. Fortunately the Aspire One is like most  
notebooks in this regard.