Ceci est une ancienne révision du document !
The Fastest Little Laptop I thought of this after reading the column entitled “Making *buntu 12.04 Boot Faster” in issue #63. The fastest little laptop computer I ever saw was a Dell Inspiron 11z. This laptop has been discontinued. If you can find one and you are looking for a super-fast cheap laptop, this is one to consider. Here's what you have to do to make it boot and run fast. This little baby came with 2 GB of RAM, so what you want to do is get two 4 GB sticks of RAM and replace the 2 GB with 8 GB. Very easy to do. Remove power cord and battery, and just remove the plate on the bottom of the laptop (one screw) and pop out the 2 gig and replace it with one of the 4 gig sticks, and install the other right on top of it. There are two memory slots. Replace the plate and the screw. You’re Done.
Le Plus Rapide Petit Ordinateur Portable
J'ai pensé à cela après avoir lu l'article intitulée «Making * buntu 12,04 démarrage rapide» dans le numéro 63. L'ordinateur portable le plus rapide que j'ai jamais vu peu était un Dell Inspiron 11z. Cet ordinateur portable a été interrompu. Si vous pouvez en trouver un et que vous êtes à la recherche d'un ordinateur portable pas cher ultra-rapide, ceci est à considérer. Voici ce que vous avez à faire pour faire démarrer et fonctionner rapidement.
Ce petit bébé est venu avec 2 Go de RAM, ce que vous voulez faire est de prendre deux bâtons de 4 Go de RAM et remplacer les 2 Go avec 8 Go. Très facile à faire. Retirez le cordon d'alimentation et la batterie, et il suffit de retirer la plaque sur le fond de l'ordinateur portable (une vis) et sortir le concert 2 et le remplacer par l'un des 4 bâtonnets de ses concerts, et installer l'autre à droite sur le dessus de celui-ci. Il ya deux emplacements mémoire. Remplacer la plaque et la vis. Vous avez terminé.
Next, watch for a good deal on a Solid State Drive (SSD) and replace the Hard Drive. This is a little tricky. You need to again unplug the power cord and remove the battery, and remove three screws from the bottom of the laptop, turn the laptop right-side up, and pop the keyboard out using a credit card – working the keyboard out without breaking it. Be careful with a small wire connection. The hard drive is under the keyboard. Remove one screw that holds the hard drive in, and replace it with the SSD. Pop the keyboard back in and put the three screws back in the bottom. Reinstall the battery. Done. Now, install Ubuntu 12.04 from a USB drive. When you are done you will have a little 11.6” i3 Intel processor with 8 GB memory and a SSD laptop that boots up in less than 15 seconds, and where the apps just load almost instantly. The battery life is good on this little unit. The mini-laptops and Netbooks are all just a little too small, but this one seems to be just the right size.
Now, the good news is this: If you look, you can find this little jewel for under $300. I found one for $289. I found an SSD, 180 GB, for $149, and the 8 GB of RAM for $39, so the total price for all was $477. I thought this was a very good deal and if you are looking for a very fast full-blown Ubuntu 12.04 carry-around computer that will keep you Ubuntuing no matter where you are, here is one. You can't go wrong. In closing, let me also add, if you have an older laptop and you want to really speed it up, you can just add more memory and a SSD, and you can make your older laptop run like new. I have a Dell Inspiron 1521, and I have the memory maxed out at 4gig and added a 180gig SSD, and it runs as fast the the 11z – but it’s a little bigger to carry around, and with shorter battery life. I believe the 11z is about 3 lbs, whereas the 1521 with a 9-cell battery is about 7 lbs. I am only guessing on the weight. Irv Risch
UEFI Horror I was shocked to learn about UEFI and Microsoft's (not surprising) anti-competitive behavior on the latest Full Circle Podcast. Ever since I have been a nerd (the open source type), I revelled and delighted in the fact that I could buy a PC or laptop, format the hard drive to get rid of the resident Windows OS, and then, in a matter of minutes, install an open source operating system such as Ubuntu or other Linux distro. But a new boot system called UEFI Secure Boot is being prepared to exclusively lock the forthcoming Windows 8 to hardware, at best obliging users to pay a fee to obtain a new key in order to enable them to install an alternative OS.
Reading around the subject, I seem to find a kind of consensus that even if this new development is a bother, it nevertheless solves a legitimate issue, and that some sort of collaboration with Microsoft and hardware vendors is the only solution to the problem. I am completely baffled that what to me is blatant anti-competitive behaviour is being apparently accepted by a large portion of the tech community. How can we have this on the one hand, and anti-trust laws obliging Microsoft to offer alternatives to its IE web browser on its Windows 7 OS? In the latter case, even if MS were not to offer these options, the user would still be free to install the other browsers, or, failing that, install another OS altogether which comes with alternative browsers already installed. But in the case of UEFI Secure Boot, the user is effectively barred from freely installing alternative software of his choice.
Personally, I think this abusive approach by Microsoft will backfire like many recent strategies carried out by the software giant. It is also a sign that MS is worried about alternative free OSs (such as Ubuntu 12.04) which are almost certainly far superior to its still-to-be-launched Windows 8. There is a considerable community of open source software users out there, and I think that they have a weight that will make itself felt in this new environment. A smart hardware manufacturer that publishes a range of non-UEFI Secure Boot machines could well see its sales skyrocket as the open source community rushes to its doors. But what about antitrust bodies? What are they saying about the impact of UEFI Secure Boot on free competition? What do fellow geeks feel? What are they going to do about it? I have a feeling that, in the end, the threat will fizzle out, it's just too far fetched a scenario to be of any substance. Anybody out there share my views? Yan Volking
Ronnie says: I’’ve sent an email to the spokesperson for the antitrust commission for Europe to see what they know (if anything) and what they intend to do (if anything) about UEFI. I’ll report back if I hear anything. Gord adds: UEFI is pure progress, the only issue is Secure Boot. Microsoft wants to require Secure Boot on Windows 8 Arm processors, which is laughable, since a vast majority of Arm processors run Android or some other form of Linux. On x86 (Intel or AMD) processors, you should be able to disable Secure Boot.
A Quick Tip Some people complain about Unity. It is different, there is no doubt about it. I have found it useful. Quick access from the Super key and the Alt-F2 combination for those command line interface software that just needs one quick line. As an example, I use pdftk (http://www.pdflabs.com/tools/pdftk-the-pdf-toolkit/) to extract pages from pdf documents. I used this command to perform a quick two-page extraction without opening a terminal. pdftk MCI.pdf cat 28-29 output MCI2.pdf For this to work, I placed the MCI.pdf at my home folder and the MCI2.pdf was created in the home folder too. You will have to know the commands to use, and for that you will most likely open a terminal to get to the pdftk man page. Once you get to know your most used commands, it will be a precise shortcut. Jesse Avilés