How to install a printer on your Aspire One

I decided it's useful to install a printer after I wanted to print an e-mail. I have a network printer so it should be easy.

On the site of www.linuxprinting.org there are a lot of install guides and drivers.

My Linpus installation already had the 'cups' installed. Probably by default. Cups is the
printing system that's being used. I downloaded the ppd driver I needed.

I just opened the cups configuration website in a browser. The url is http://localhost:631/admin. I added a new printer with the Internet Printing Protocol (ipp), which my printer supports. It seems like a lot of modern printers are supported by cups. I had to provide the downloaded .ppd file though, because my printer wasn't.

After logging in as root on the install webpage, there's an option to set printer options, like paper size and double sided printing. After that, go to the tmenu item 'Printers' to test the installation with 'Print Test Page'. Mine worked fine!

So it's actually quite easy. Cups is already installed, and if you don't have an exotic printer, you shouldn't even have to look on the internet for drivers, and just follow the directions on http://localhost:631/admin

Install FireFox3 on the Acer Aspire One

Also, a good thing to do with your Aspire One is to install Firefox 3. Firefox 2 is installed by default, but since several Linpus programmes (like email) depend on Firefox 2 libraries, you cannot just upgrade 2 to 3.
I found a very good tutorial you can use, or you can follow my summary of the tutorial.

On the Firefox site you can choose the newest Firefox in your favorite language. Make sure you choose a download with os=linux. In this example, I'll use version 3.5.1 in US English. I downloaded via the link http://www.mozilla.com/products/download.html?product=firefox-3.5.1&os=linux&lang=en-US and put it in /tmp.

Now extract the file as superuser to the directory /opt.
sudo tar -jxf firefox-3.5.1.tar.bz2 --directory /opt

Set the default user as owner of all the files with
sudo chown user -R /opt/firefox

I choose to rename the old startup script /usr/bin/firefox to firefox2. Then I set a symbolic link from /usr/bin/firefox to the newly installed one.
sudo mv /usr/bin/firefox /usr/bin/firefox2
sudo ln -fs /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

The next step links all plug-ins (not to be confused with extensions) to Firefox 3.
sudo ln -s /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/* /opt/firefox/plugins

Launch the profile manager using the command below. Create a new profile, name it anything you like and select it. If you want to keep your bookmarks export them via the bookmark manager first. You can then delete the old default profile.
The old profile has some things disabled, including the "check for updates".
firefox -profilemanager -no-remote

Now, I'm going to change the connect menu. First, copy the old .desktop file to a new one. I want to keep the old one, just in case.
sudo cp /usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop /usr/share/applications/firefox3.desktop

Edit the linpus-web.desktop file with your favorite editor. Search the line with "Exec=firefox" and edit it to "Exec=firefox2".
In the file firefox3.desktop, replace the old icon with a new one.
sudo sed '/Icon/ s/acs_//' -i /usr/share/applications/firefox3.desktop

Now, edit the menu. Edit the file ~/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml.
Optional: I copied the line <app sequence="0">/usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop</app> to the bottom of the block, replacing 0 by 11 (my last menuitem was 10).
We want to have the new FireFox icon on the first spot (replacing the old browser). Edit the line <app sequence="0">/usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop</app> and replace "linpus-web.desktop" by "firefox3.desktop".

Now, after a reboot of the system, it should work. You'll have a nice Firefox logo in the connect menu, which will open Firefox3.


How to install software in Linpus Lite on the Acer Aspire One

I wanted to install an irc-client on my AA1. I decided xchat was an ok option. I will post a step by step installation.

1. First open a terminal screen. This can be done with Alt-F2 and run program xterm.
2. Use the software package manager yum to install xchat. Yum is installed with Linpus. On the command line, type yum install xchat to install.
3. Now the program is installed, but it's nice to have an icon in the connect-menu. The install made a file named /usr/share/applications/xchat.desktop with a desktop entry, containing links to an icon and the executable. This file we want to present to the menu.
4. The menu is located in /home/user/.config/xfce4/desktop/group-app.xml, an xml file. Now look for the group where the first app is <app sequence="0">/usr/share/applications/linpus-web.desktop</app>. You can put the icon at the end, by adding the line <app sequence="9">/usr/share/applications/xchat.desktop</app> at the end of the apps, but I preferred to give it sequence=2 and give the other sequences an increase of 1, so xchat is displayed on the home screen.

Well, this installed xchat for me. In this way, you should be able to install most of the programmes.