Hi all, In a previous email I mused at the wondrousness of being able to connect my new slimline DVD writer to my (very) old ThinkPad 600X running 4 year old Mepis. The drive was recognised and K3b worked properly. I burned all my photos to DVD as a backup and I was impressed that it "just worked".
The drive was purchased to go with my Acer Aspire One netbook, and I mentioned that I was waiting for Mepis 8.0 to be released as it had enough smarts to recognise all the new stuff in the Aspire One, and didn't have the bleeding edge KDE (which was a little *too* cool for some). Last week Mepis 8.0 was released and I burned the iso (on the old ThinkPad). Unfortunately I am packing to go to Korea now, so I don't have time to fiddle with it, but I have booted the Aspire One with the Mepis Live CD. I am pleased to say that the following things seem to work "out of the box" * Sound * Wireless network * Wired network * Screen resolution * Touchpad * Volume keys on keyboard * Mounting an encrypted external USB hard drive I haven't tested anything else, and I know there are a few post-install tweaks needed, but they are documented, so really everything should work as expected. I'm a little unsure about wiping the whole disk. The Aspire One has XP on it, with a 4Gb hidden partition which contains the factory image. I could resize the main XP partition and create two more for Linux and /home, but I don't know if XP or GRUB will play nicely. I could wipe the whole lot and be rebellious and crazy, but if I have a warranty issue I would like to put it back to factory state to avoid any accusations of "It's broke because you put Linux on it". Anyhoo, I'm very happy with my purchase. It's small and light and the keyboard is very usable. Best wishes, Andrew
