back to article Ubuntu Eee undergoes cheesy Easy Peasy rebrand

An Ubuntu Linux-based distro landed this week for netbook users with the annoying sounding name of Easy Peasy 1.0. Easy Peasy, previously known as Ubuntu Eee, has dropped the Eee tag to signal that they’re gunning for more than just the Asus netbook market. The new moniker, logo and website should also help the outfit …

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  1. Adrian
    Coat

    But

    it's all very well having an EEE(zee) PC OS for EEE PCs but unless they have "One Aspire"ation I won't be loading it onto my Aspire One.

    Mine's the one with an Aspire One in it's pocket.

  2. Andrew Moore

    A'la The Fast Show...

    "Cheesy Peas, please!"

  3. jai

    reminds me of the Fast Show

    do you like (ch)eese?

    do you like peas?

    then you'll love Ubuntu's new distro, (ch)EasyPeasy!!

  4. Mark

    And very good it is too.

    Very impressive.

  5. Conor Turton
    Stop

    One question: Why?

    Why are they doing this when Ubuntu 8.10 already has full netbook support and in Synaptic, there's a netbook front end you can install with a single command line entry? Seems like just yet another pointless Ubuntu fork.

    More here with video:

    http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/nbr

  6. Andrew Oakley
    Thumb Up

    A Fan

    I use the previous version - Ubuntu Eee 8.04 - on my Asus Eee 901 and it knocks ten shades of poop out of Xandros. Even my rich Mac Air-owning friends were impressed by it.

    As well as the Ubuntu Netbook interface, with large panels and buttons which work so well with a netbook's small screen, it features a kernel specifically designed for Intel Atom CPUs which boots up in next to no time. The Ubuntu Netbook interface also boasts a neat feature that automatically maximises all suitable windows, again ideal for small screens.

    I did make a couple of tweaks. I installed eee-control which is a tray applet to allow you to quickly turn wifi, bluetooth and webcam on/off. This is included in the repositories that are set up by default. I also repartitioned the drive so that /home was on the faster SDA SSD; then created /home2 on the slower SDB SSD and symbolically linked my Music, Pictures, Videos etc. folders on to /home2/myusername . This means that .preferences files in the user's home directory are loaded faster.

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Andrew Moore

    What about new Squeezy Cheesey Peas?

  8. Greem
    Alert

    Oh, lord, the many-headed beast grows another head

    Cheasy Peasy < Lemon Squeezy < Ubuntu < Debian

    How many more forks can we get? There's enough trouble with Ubuntu-ites who can't read bloody documentation turning up on support mailing lists and forums without going through their own, or Debian's, first. Now there's another one. Great!

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    @Conor Turton

    Two reasons

    1) A typical end user will not be arsed with even those steps (the whole "Returning netbooks for the 'upgrade' to Windows saga.") Only an enthusiast would worry about that. End users simply want to turn on and go. For new (or just casual) users "terminal == THE FEAR". The se users do not want (nor do they need) to know how the thing works - it should just work.

    2) Marketing. At the end of the day it probably boils down to the exact same stuff with (perhaps) a few different icons, but it allows them to market it in a whole new way which appear all fluffly, cuddly and really whizz-bango.

    And you can bet it is mostly about 2.

  10. Saucerhead Tharpe
    Linux

    I believe the Aspire IS catered for

    From having a look at the forum

    I have Ubuntu on my EEE 701, admittedly Xubuntu 8.04 and there are some things not quite right, the wireless doesn't support WPA2 the most problematical.

    So if the former UbuntuEee is more suitable, then why not

  11. Stuart
    Go

    Why didn't Canonical?

    @ Conor Turton "Ubuntu 8.10 already has full netbook support"

    Really? Troll across to forum.eeuser.com and see the endless threads on trying to get wifi, sound, camera, suspend et al working in Ubuntu. That's why Ubuntu eee and several other 'forks' emerged to try and provide an out of the box experience with what should have been the breakthrough product for Ubuntu.

    Several million not very good Xandros installations was a gift if Canonical could have delivered a working product. Remember not all this market gets excited by ndiswrapping or kernel compiling. Load & Go from a LiveCd should have been there with 8.04.

    I think we are still waiting. Meanwhile Asus (and many users) have returned to the MS World. Lost opportunity.

  12. Bruno Girin
    Go

    @Conor

    Presumably for that reason taken from the NBR page: "now we recommend it only for experienced Linux users or commercial OEMs and ODMs engage with Canonical for support and service offerings."

    And AFAIK, EasyPeasy uses NBR under the covers put packages it in a way that runs well on the Eee and is easy to install. I'll have to try it out on my Eee 701.

  13. Brad

    Please, stop with the names

    You're starting to make "Vista" sound good

  14. Steven Pemberton
    Thumb Down

    Hardy Pardy more like

    So I went along to their website wearing a newby user's hat to see how easy peasy it would be for the the average netbook user to install this stuff.

    The home page has a link to download, but no instructions on installing. You get an ISO file, that most people won't know what to do with.

    The home page also has a link to documentation, which *also* has no instructions on installing.

    So it's just another Linux distro for those in the know. How do they expect Linux to catch on if they don't make it easy for newcomers?

  15. matt young
    Alert

    cue the court case...

    ..from that orange colored company that seems th think they own the rights to everything starting in easy....

  16. Jay
    Linux

    Not bad, but still needs work

    I installed it yesterday on my EEE 701 to replace Ubuntu EEE 8.04.1. Installation was OK, and things where much better once I got rid of the hideous Netbook Remix front end. Also the wifi drivers seem to be a lot better (in that they do not go in a huff if the wifi signal strength is not near 100%).

    My biggest problem is that the Fn keys combo for toggling wifi on/off and sound up/down no longer work (which they did in Ubuntu EEE 8.04.1). It's not the end of the world but is a bit of a pain, esp the wifi one. There are some fixes in the pipeline, but no idea when.

    @Adrian - The renaming from Ubuntu EEE was not just because Canonical where not particularly happy, but also to encompass all netbooks etc as they wanted to branch out from just EEE. So I believe that it should work with the Aspire One.

    @Conor - The reason it exists is so that it can cater to the strange hardware setup/tweaks Asus (and others) have made in their products.

    @Steven - True the documentation is very sparse and a bit anti-noob. And the forum is a right mess and could do with some moderation to stop the same questions being asked all the time.

    @Matt - Strangely enough they've already had contact with The Easy Group (or whatever Stelios' lot are called). They're OK with the name as long as the word easy has a capital E, they stay away from using the colour orange and a certain font.

  17. TeeCee Gold badge

    Re: Hardy Pardy

    Yup, too true. Take that, add Greem's winge above about how much of a PITA it is getting lusers asking dumb arse questions in the support forums (and draw your own conclusions on some of the responses they're seeing - "community support" is *supposed* to be a plus) and you can see why MS and Apple are not exactly quaking in their boots.

  18. Colin Millar
    Pirate

    @Saucerhead - Acer Aspire

    Yeah - The aspire takes ubuntu 8.04 with few probs although usb NetInstall can be v lengthy (don't give up when it sits at 'installing software 6%' for a few hours). Wireless hardware is an additional install but dead easy and v quick. Still trying to work out the Dial-up modem install for those rare occasions when its the only option.

    Also - it wasn't until after the first time I did the NetInstall that I found a reference to removing the bootstick as soon as the language prompt appeared so that the stick wouldn't be needed for all future boots and updates and upgrades would survive beyond the session. I think I'd do a CD install in future.

    Of course people should remember that Ubuntu is designed for desktops and there is always going to be compromises to be made. There is Netbook Remix which allows for some tidying up tricks but pingus beware - there is proprietary code in that. Of course none of this is suitable for people who are frightened of terminal - they should get the xp book instead - Linpus Lite is garbage.

  19. Kevin Whitefoot
    Heart

    Works on my Acer Aspire One

    I downloaded it yesterday on my existing Ubuntu 8.04 box. Followed the slightly confusing instructions to get the UNetBookInstaller, installed that (had to change the mode on the binary because the .deb file didn't), ran the installer to copy the ISO to an old external usb disk. Plugged in to my Acer, booted, installed.

    It just works. And, compared to Acer's UI it looks really nice and of course is considerably more capable.

    It even has Bluetooth running and detected my Tesco BT dongle (Cambridge Silicon Radion).

    I agree the instructions could be better. But it is a wiki and all those complaining are surely qualified to fix the instructions. I'll have a go this evening, unless one of you beats me to it.

    All hail Jon Ramvi!

    P.s. Umm, please don't take the heart too literally (you know, the baby bit, etc.)!

  20. A J Stiles
    Linux

    Some people are too dense to use a computer

    @ Steven Pemberton

    "The home page has a link to download, but no instructions on installing. You get an ISO file, that most people won't know what to do with."

    An ISO file is a CD image (named after BS ISO 9660 -- you know, the international standard governing CD-ROMs). Not that you actually need to know why it's called that; it's just a file containing a stream of zeros and ones ready to burn to a CD-ROM.

    Now, GUI designers have arranged it so that when you click on a file, some program that knows what to do with that type of file will start up with that file loaded and ready to process. Meaning when you click on an ISO file, your CD burning program should just start up automagically. (At least, when you click on an ISO file in KDE, K3B starts.) And just in case you might have been in any doubt about what that file might be, it even has an icon resembling a CD.

  21. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Re: Some people are too dense to use a computer

    I suggest A J Stiles doesn't take up writing user guides or even does any user support type job - as he just hasn't a clue what information the average computer user needs to perform a task they have never done before, let alone a true newbie that you might want to be helping

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Re: Some people are too dense to use a computer

    AC: Here are the instructions for Tellytubbies like yourself:

    Double click on the file you downloaded.

    Put a blank disc in the CD drive.

    Choose "burn" (depending on the software you currently have installed)

    After a while you will have a disc with the software and installation instructions on it.

    The commercial reality is that the disc will be downloaded once and burnt to each machine in the factory and these instructions will not be needed. You'll get a mass-produced copy of the disc in the box along with the computer and a manual.

    If you still don't understand what's being said then I reccommend taking a deep breath and then asking your nurse or carer for help.

    Q: If you had a brand new PC without an OS on it, how would you go about getting a free demo of windows onto it? Is it a more complex procedure than this?

  23. Karl Dallas

    EEEPC doesn't have CDdrive

    I know how to burn a CD from an ISO, but that's no help since the EEE PC doesn't have a CD drive. Can I burn it to USB memory stick instead?

  24. Kevin Whitefoot
    Happy

    @EEEPC doesn't have CDdrive

    Yes you can put it on a USB drive. I used a USB hard drive but flash memory works too.

    In fact a CD drive would not work for the full install because the ISO image is over 800MB.

    Update: Belkin Mini Bluetooth adapters also work (Broadcomm chipset) which is really good becaus it is so small it can be left plugged in, no need to open the case and solder it in.

  25. David Gagnon

    What's the point?

    Like some others said, what's the point of this fork? I thought it was great when Ubuntu didn't work out-of-the-box on my EeePC, but now that Ubuntu 8.10 works fine, I really don't see the use of this. So what's the point again?

  26. Anonymous Coward
    Alien

    Re: AC's Guide for Some people are too dense to use a computer

    I take it you have never had to do anything that involves talking to users of any system, let alone any support role?

    The most stupid people are usually those who are derogatory about other people - they are usually hiding how little they know about a subject by belittling others - often, as in your case, falling flat on their face because they completely misunderstand what is being said and have very little experience of subject

  27. Ian Johnston Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    What to do with the iso?

    Why, you click System -> Administration -> Create a USB startup disk on your Ubuntu machine, and point unetbootin at the Easy Peasy iso.

    My Eee started on Xandros, rapidly went to eeeXubuntu, tried Ubuntu 8.10, reverted to eeeXubuntu and is now firmly on Easy Peasy 1.0 which (a) Just Works and (b) rocks.

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