NB100 slow with Ubuntu 12.10

Without spending much time trying to diagnose the NB100 – IE Base install and connecting to the wireless, the speed does not exactly make the very honest Toshiba NB100 netbook usable. This is also assuming the tiny dual Atom, 1Gb of ram and the 120Gb non-ssd disk.

Reading across some of the forums, the issue is traced back to Unity and the simple fact that Canonical has opted to dump more processing onto the GPU rather than the CPU. This all falls back to their OpenGL and GLSL.

Without getting into details, it is worth noting that Google searches for “Ubuntu OpenGL slow” and “Ubuntu GLSL slow” bring up A LOT of results.

Appendices – Google results.

Documented workarounds are downgrading to older versions. 10.04 which is reasonably quick (pretty quick even as a VM), going to alternative distros with slightly lighter footprints – IE Lubuntu, Xubuntu, and Lubuntu if you would like to to stay with the ‘Buntu family.

What has worked for me is to jump to Linux Mint Mate 14 – acknowledging that yes is it another apple from the same tree but this one was fallen a bit further and after a week of use seems more intuitive, better on resources, and could possibly even pass as an operating system you would install on your mom’s computer.

Recent development:

Further development from Canonical, the 13.10 release is meant to have a better polished Unity capable of providing a more fluid front end, loading time, etc. As yet this can not yet been benchmarked on the trusty old NB100 –

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2013/06/ubuntu-13-10-readies-arrival-of-smarter-unity-dash

P2V – Disk2VHD for Hyper-V on DL380 G3, G4, G5 Freeze

A recent P2V to Hyper-V 2008 R2 on the weekend brought about a challenge.

After the completion of the P2V; Disk2VHD creations + new VM, the newly created VM would drop to an almost frozen speed. Not much could be done short of cutting its power.

A bit of digging into it, I found the HP services (HP insight and all the awesome bloatware they load with the smart start CD) were causing the freeze.

Anyhows, long story short, before your maiden boot, go into safemode and disable ALL HP services – best practice should be to uninstall any legacy HP software, but first you will need to boot to do so. Your new VM should now be able to boot comfortably and if you’re running Windows 2003 – Be ready to drive without mouse until you have your integration services installed.

 

This was on a DL 380 G3, although further reading into if in the off-time showed people having similar issues with the G4 and G5s as well.

Lift Kit

As per my previous post, about the 2 inch body lift kit for your Vitara 2 door gen 2, please note the install instructions. I have just asked the permission from the manufacturer to point people in his direction, so his e-mail address may pop up soon. I remember seeing other lift kits available for other makes.

Kit contains:
10 Body lift blocks
6 M10 female tube bolts
6 50mm diameter washers for M10 tube bolts
2 M10 bolts for front mounts
2 M10 flat washers
2 M10 spring washers

Excuse the lack of pictures but the instructions follow:

The grade of technical skills is rated about a 3.5/5 and do recommend that your mechanic checks over your work after you’re done.

This took about 3 days worth of work but I had never done a body lift before. Good lift kit in my opinion though.

I have just sold the car but the lift kit seemed to have stiffened up the suspension somehow, even though I dont see how.

One word of caution – do not let your chassis slide from your car or you could be in a world of pain.
Installation instructions:
1. Park the vehicle on level ground, and disconnect the battery.
2. Remove grille and headlights and remove the front body bolts.
3. Remove the steel sleeve from the front body mounts.
4. Un-bolt the brake pipe junction from the chassis – located on the right hand
side of the chassis just in front of the firewall.
5. Loosen the clamp bolts at either end of the steering shaft between the firewall
and steering box.
6. Un-clip any wiring from the firewall that runs to the engine.
7. Un-clip A/C piping from inner guard (if fitted).
8. Un-plug the O2 sensor.
9. Loosen the air intake pipe to the air-box.
10. V6 models: Un-bolt fuel lines from the body on the right hand side of the
engine bay. Remove the strut brace – inner arches will need to be trimmed to
re-fit the strut brace after body lift.
11. Remove the plastic console surrounding the gear levers in the cabin.
12. Remove the retaining rings which hold down the rubber gear lever boots.
13. Remove the front and rear bumpers.
14. Loosen the fuel filler hose clamps.
15. Remove the clips from the brake hose to the left front wheel, and pull the hose
free from the mounts.
16. Loosen and remove the other body mount bolts found behind the front wheels,
in front of the rear wheels, and at the rear of the chassis.
17. Slowly jack one side of the body up until there is just enough room to install
the spacer blocks. Take your time, and keep checking that no hoses or wires
are caught or getting stretched while jacking.
18. Remove the plastic sleeves from the body mount studs and install the spacer
blocks with the parts in this order: body, spacer block, rubber bush, chassis.
19. Glue two spacers (4 on LWB) in place between the mid body mounts using
black body adhesive / silicone.
20. Gently lower the body back on to the chassis and loosely fit the rubber bush
and supplied female tube bolts and washers to the studs, but do not tighten
fully.
21. Repeat for the other side of the body.
22. Install the new longer bolts in the front mounts.
23. Once all bolts are loosely fitted and aligned properly, tighten the bolts fully.
24. Bolt the brake pipe junction back onto the chassis. If both bolts will not line
up, move the block up one hole and install one bolt.
25. Tighten the steering shaft bolts.
26. Re-clip the wiring, A/C and O2 sensor back in.
27. Re-attach the intake pipe. 16 valve models may need the alloy intake pipe
spacing up to reduce tension on the hose.
28. Re-fit the gear lever boots and console. Check the transfer lever and gear
lever can select all gears without touching the body or console or popping
back out of gear. Fitting the inner transfer boot upside down can help with
this, or sometimes the levers will need to be re-bent or cut and welded to clear.
29. Re-fit the front and rear bumpers. If using the stock bumpers brackets will be
required to raise the bumper to match the body.
30. Tighten the fuel hose clamps.
31. Drill a 16mm hole in the left hand inner guard, 50mm below the original brake
hose hole. Undo the brake hose connection and move it to the lower hole.
32. Clip the brake line back into place.
33. Bleed the left hand front brakes.