A while back I wrote a short note about "How I see the World" which briefly gave my font settings for Mozilla Firefox (versions 2 and 3). I use those settings on all my desk and laptop computers for day to day work. I use them in any account except "root". I still usually use default settings for "root" so I still have an example of what the original program distribution looks like. This is mainly useful when I try to help other people with their problems.
A while back, I also made a small change to my usual system display settings for improved legibility. However, instead of just giving the change, I have decided to elaborate on the topic.
I have somewhat limited experience with OpenSuSE operating systems. The first that I used extensively was 10.2, which is now retired. I am currently using 10.3, 11.0 and 11.1 (pre-release). I believe that I have mentioned some of the reasons for this previously. When support for 10.2 was coming to an end, I needed a replacement. 11.0 had just become "Final" so I tried it first and found it to be too buggy, and I decided to fall back to 10.3 for my main system.
Since that happened, a few other things occurred. The most significant thing is that I have bought three different "netbook" computers. Because they are all relatively "new" technologies (or applications of technologies) they are not generally well supported in Linux systems. So I have been waiting for versions of Linux that support them more thoroughly. This has resulted in my getting involved with a number of the more popular Linux distributions. And regarding OpenSuSE specifically, 11.0, which has been used with some success on a number of netbooks, and the pre-release versions of 11.1.
The font systems for the System are found and adjusted in "Application Browser/Utilities/Appearance".
The Resolution is calculated and set when you define your display during installation or if you make system hardware changes. For many "new" computers this will be done after hardware is detected and set on installation or when some system hardware changes are detected. However, on first use of the system, the resolution sometimes seems to be ignored. I have debated whether or not to report this "bug". I happen to prefer that it works this way. What I have found is that I sometimes like to see displays based on roughly 100 pixels per inch, which seems to be the default assumption of the system. A lot of current software has been designed for displays in this range, in turn because it is still common in desk computer displays.
The rest of the default settings are:
Application font: Sans 10
Document font: Sans 10
Desktop font: Sans 10
Window title font: Sans Bold 10
Fixed width font: Monospace 10
Render: "Best Shapes"
[Details]
Resolution: 109 dpi (on my 17" 1280 x 1024 screen)
Smoothing: Greyscale
Hinting: Medium
Subpixel order: "RGB" (correct for my LCD display).
First, let me address the situation with the "netbooks". Most of the netbooks today are using 1024 pixel rows on 9" and 10" displays. On my Acer Aspire One, the nominal 9" display actually measures 7 11/16" (7.6875") wide by 4 15/32" (4.46875") high -- yes, I actually took a ruler and measured it. The horizontal pitch is about 133.203 pixels per inch. On my HP-2133, the 1280 * 768 resolution in a roughly 9" display is even finer. OpenSuSE calculated it at 167 pixels per inch.
The initial display on my HP-2133 appeared to assume a 100 pixel per inch resolution, which gave good emulation of a typical desk computer display. When I accessed the [Details] sub-window of the "Appearance" utility, it suddenly discovered the 167ppi setting and corrected the displays -- all except the desktop. I re-booted the computer to see the result of this resolution, and hated it. The result is, of course that the text was wonderfully large and legible, but the display was simply not designed for it. Many of the names for programs and descriptions truncated. I decided to compromise and set the resolution to 128 dpi. The result was much better, and if asked, that is what I recommend most people should try on this setup.
I made a second change, which is more a matter of personal taste. Stated simply, the exclusive use of "Sans" font is also silly. In the old days of computing there was not much resolution, so serif fonts looked ugly and were often hard to read. But when you have 100ppi and greater, there is no reason not to use serif fonts. Moreover, serif fonts are generally more legible. So I also changed the "Application font" to "Serif 10", converting to serif, but also giving it a bit larger size for even more clarity.
[NOTE: Above changed 2008/12/11. Was "Serif 12"]
The Desktop is significantly clearer, and yet the system level displays throughout did not change much in size and content, and thus are still useful. On the application level, things are a little less consistent. "Firefox" uses its own rendering assumptions and in essence ignores these settings in its page display, so my previously mentioned settings are still what I prefer. However, OpenOffice Writer (and presumably the rest of OpenOffice) as well as "gedit", and probably most other GNOME based programs, use the system settings for font rendering calculations, so your resolution change is carried through.
I cannot guarantee you will like my settings, but it is a simple change which has a great benefit. I recommend that you give it a try.
For the more typical netbooks, I recommend 96ppi or 100ppi if
you want to see things displayed like on a desk computer, but
110ppi and 128ppi if you want a larger font display.
[2008/12/11] and [2008/12/07]
I have used standard settings on many applications, on many computers over the years, but occasionally I will make a change. Fairly recently I decided to change my font settings for Mozilla Firefox 3.0.3 (On OpenSuSE 10.3 and 11.0). So far, these settings are on my desk computer, which is displayed on a 17" 1280 * 1024 LCD screen. If they work out well, I expect to switch my laptops over to the same settings:
- Advanced Settings:
- Fonts for "Western":
- Proportional: "Serif", 16 point [was 15 point]
- Serif: "URW Bookman L"
- Sans-Serif: "Lucida Sans"
- Monospace: "monospace" 12 [no change]
[I found that the smaller mobile displays worked much better with
16 point than 15 point, and it was still a reasonable size for my desk
computers. So I have consolidated all my OpenSuSE computers to these
settings.]
[2008/11/12] revised [2008/11/16]
My last message changed course while I was writing it because I was undecided about what netbooks I am going to have right now. When I bought my first ASUS EeePC 701 I thought that that would be my netbook for the year. Then my Nokia N800 has stolen and I decided that I might want to replace it with another netbook, so I bought the Acer Aspire One. However, the Acer Aspire One turned out to be disappointing, and the one feature that I felt would make up for the disappointments was that I thought it had a 64-bit processor, which it did not. And then the direction that HP is taking for future versions of the Mini-Note 2133 did not seem to be in the direction I had hoped. So, based on what I said in my last message, I decided to spend the money now and buy an HP Mini-Note 2133 with the current specifications -- particularly the 1280 x 768 screen.
I have overspent my computer budget for the year now, which does not
make me happy, but I felt it was better than missing out on an
acceptable product whereas it may take years for the industry to
equal it again. I have had it for a few days now, and I am just
setting up the software and testing everything. It seems to be
pretty much as I expected, and I think I will be satisfied with it
for quite a while. I will keep the Acer Aspire One for testing
purposes. I actually do use the ASUS EeePC 701 quite regularly for
quick "on and off" Internet browsing. However, I will probably
eventually be using a Nokia N810, which would likely replace the
ASUS EeePC. I would prefer the N800, but it is no longer made.
Again, that is the problem I am seeing. Better products are in
some cases being replaced by inferior products due to market trends.
Oh well.
[2008/10/29]
As I noted recently, we are in "refresh season". A lot of new products are being announced. Unfortunately, the evidence shows that the current direction for HP's netbook products is, perhaps, not so auspicious. The latest versions of the 2133 series have been downgraded to 1024 X 600 screens (though with pretty good 300x contrast, which I think is probably better than some of the competition). Rumour has it that the Atom processor will be showing up in this line fairly soon. The Atom is certainly not a terrible processor, but the 945 chipset that Intel has teamed it up with has resulted in preformance that is really not that much better than the earlier Celeron versions of ASUS products, or the VIA based machines.
In all, I was hoping for the refresh to see the new VIA VX800U chipset, with or without the VIA NANO 64-bit processor. However, the salient point is that the 1280 x 768 screen might become hard to find, or even disappear in the near future. It is my opinion that I like the 1024 x 600 screens in the 9" size range, but I would have liked a 1280 x 768 screen in the 10" size range. But it currently does not seem like the latter is going to happen in the near term. So if you want a 1280 screen in this general size, I suggest that you look around for a sale now and pick up a 2133 with this resolution while you can.
Then again, it is expected that HP will introduce an "Mini-Note
1000" product which will be closer to the MSI Wind or perhaps
the Lenovo IdeaPad S10. This might happen in the next month.
We will see soon enough.
[2008/10/26]
Regarding my experiences with the EeePC, I will start by pointing out that there is, what I consider to be a security problem. If you enter your real name during the setup procedure, which is what they ask, then the name of the computer is set to a variation of your own proper name. If you enter "Joe Smith" then the computer becomes "Eeepc--joesmith". This is a very bad idea since any web server you access can keep a record of your name, and an identity thief could get ahold of your name and track your usage patterns.
The computer name can be changed. First disconnect from the internet (turn off Wireless or unplug the LAN cable). Start a console/terminal session by using "Ctrl-Alt-T" and enter "sudo kcontrol". Change the appropriate settings and shut down and restart your computer. If you are connecting via WiFi, you might have to shut off your router, or use its control system to "clear" existing connections in order to connect under the new name.
There are other things I can tell you. For example, most of the earliest reviews of the EeePC are already outdated. In fact, from what I can tell, they were outdated within the first 3 or 4 months of EeePC sales. Soon after they came out, the software began upgrading, and from what I have seen, most of the criticisms I read in the early reviews were dealt with fairly soon after it came to market. For example, one writer made a point of saying there was no support for PowerPoint. I recently got around to trying a PowerPoint file set and it appears to work. So at some point, the OpenOffice software was upgraded to cover the problem.
One final point of issue is that the very success of the EeePC
has made it difficult to upgrade your software, because the
upgrade servers have been overwhelmed. Hopefully, ASUS will
deal with that issue fairly soon as well.
[2008/07/23] revised [2008/08/03]
[The first article, which is the "Battery Burn-Down Test" is the only
new material for this consolidation. The rest of the articles were
previously found in the "Newspage". If I have time, someday I will
re-write it all into a true consolidated article. However, for now,
it will probably be more convenient for people who have followed this
series to simply read the first article and skip the rest. So for now,
it is probably better this way. -- JO]
[2008/10/01]
The power management settings were set at the default "balanced"
setting.
[2008/10/08]
The fact that I ran the Battery Burn-Down test at all is a bad sign. I am very busy. I am too busy to do such a test on a device with a battery which I expect will last long enough to suit my usage. So for such a device, I would not even consider running the test on my own, and certainly not unless I expected to get well paid for the effort.
My Acer Aspire One came with a Model "UM08A71" 11.1V, 2200 mAh rechargeable lithium ion battery. To put this in perspective, my ASUS EeePC 701 4G came with a Model "A22-P701" 7.4V, 5200 mAh rechargeable lithium ion battery. The key number is the mAh rating. With the reasonably low power requirements of the EeePC, this battery allows for "comfortable" usage in most cases.
If you are concerned about the sufficiency of charge of your battery, then it is a distraction. If you are trying to get work done, then a battery that requires you to worry about how much work time you have left means that within the same amount of work time, you are probably not going to work as efficiently as you would if you were not concerned about it. It is getting in your way. So the fact that you have a battery with 1 hour's worth of charge is not good enough if you have an amount of work that normally takes one an hour to finish, because it is slowing you down, and you might not finish the work within the hour.
So "comfortable usage" means that you know that you have enough power to get the work done without having to worry about it.
Since I started the Acer, I noticed immediately that the battery seemed to drain noticeably in a short period of time. In fact, I am not sure if it ever showed a full charge. The display seems to indicate that the peak charge is just a bit below full. Thus it was clear that I could not rely on the battery charge for most of my work. In fact, since I started using it, I have generally used it while connected to a charger. Having started using it in the second week of August, as I write this on October 1, 2008, I have probably used it for less time on battery than I use my EeePC on battery for a week. It is still a fairly fresh battery.
My "Burn-Down" test is simple. I charge the battery full, disconnect the charger, and use the device in fairly normal ways until the battery is no longer usable. For the Acer Aspire One, that means the WiFi connection is constantly one, and I do a lot of things I normally do, in as normal a way as possible. In this case, I listened to "BBC Radio 2" through Real Player 11 GOLD for about 1/2 hour, followed by some YouTube, and then a short bit of Forum reading, all followed by a couple of games of FreeCell, and then MahJong, until the battery warning came on.
In fact, the "YouTube" part of the test did not run very long because the FlashPlayer crashed, freezing that program. I used System Monitor to kill the Mozilla browser, and then restarted the browser to continue the test (all without shutting down the computer).
I will not bother justifying this style of test compared to the more mechanically consistent artificial tests. All I will say is that such artificial tests are meaningful, but not really much more than this "practical" test. I can write about the validity of both styles of tests at length, but for now, I will just say that I feel this is a meaningful test.
The computer itself was running the latest BIOS (0.3304) and fully updated software. This version has the 120GB hard drive. The only hardware change was the added 1GB DDR2 RAM which raises total RAM to 1.5 GB. This probably increases battery drain slightly, but probably less than can be measures.
The results were simple. After 1 hour and 50 minutes, the low battery warning came on. At about 1 hour and 52 minutes, the computer automatically went into hibernation (saving to hard drive). I re-attached the power cord and resumed work. This restored the state. At that time it went into hibernation, I was playing Mahjong, and as far as I could tell, the state restored properly, and I continued the game.
Even if sitting on a shelf at room temperature a battery drains its charge slowly. In a computer, a battery might not ever be completely unused. It could be powering the system clock (saving the built-in battery's charge). So if used throughout a day or two, less than a complete charge will be available. Moreover "system boot" and "shutdown" are generally the heaviest usages for a battery in this application. So using a computer 2 or 3 times with breaks between will give less real work time than if a computer is used constantly. This means that realistically, one cannot trust this battery to give more than about an hour's work on a charge.
[2008/10/01]
I received my Acer Aspire One only a few days ago, and I was not going to post anything until I had more time to test it, but a few matters became apparent immediately which are sufficiently important for me to post this interim report:
First, contrary to any photos you may have seen, if you get a Canadian distribution unit, you will get a "Canadian Bilingual" keyboard. This style of keyboard has been coming on recent Canadian market Toshiba laptops and, I believe Canadian market HP/Compaq laptops as well. I do not like them. The layout adds a "backslash/vertical line" key between the left hand shift key and the "Z" key. Actually, for a while, this was done on US English IBM-PC (XT) style keyboards, but it has generally fallen out of favour. On the right side, a duplicate "backslash/vertical line" key is put between the "apostrophe/quote" key and the "Enter" key, and the "Enter" key is extended upward into the next row, replacing the more usual "backslash/vertical line" key. Thus, there is only 1 more key in the total count, but the layout is substantially different, requiring a lot more long stretch of the last fingers on both hands.
I do not have hard statistics, but it is my impression that even Francophones do not necessarily prefer this keyboard layout for French. There are a couple of relatively common "bilingual" keyboards that have been in Canada for a long time. This type is only one. The other is mainly the typical US English style keyboard with a few different key definitions.
The Canadian Aspire One keyboard uses a variation of this "tall Enter key" style layout, but with the two extra keys and another in the "Q" row narrower than the normal key width. In my opinion, this is even worse because the location relationship for the narrow keys is different from the others, and the extra small keys are even harder to find when you need them, making errors almost a certainty.
The next problem is that the touchpad "buttons" are very noisy. If you are thinking about using these at school, and particularly in lectures or classrooms or libraries, you should not buy this product. There is a good chance that the person in charge will tell you to stop using it because of the noise. In fact, since I live in a high-rise, I have to consider whether my neighbours can here me at night when I am in my bedroom. I believe the buttons are loud enough to disturb my neighbours, so I will not be using my Aspire One in my bedroom after midnight, or even earlier in the evening if it seems likely to disturb them.
The above problems are fairly permanent. Less likely to be permanent is the problem of security. The "Linpus Lite v1.0.7.3" password is almost completely ineffective. It does not stop use of the computer from startup. That is to say, when you start up the computer the desktop will come up and all programs will be usable no matter what password settings you have set. In fact, if you "lock" the computer, the "lock" can be by-passed, simply by shutting off the computer and re-starting it up. That makes it the most ineffective protection I have ever seen.
Moreover, the current BIOS "v0.3114" does not have User level password implemented yet, so that cannot be used to stop people from using the Acer One, if left unattended.
So can the Acer One be used for anything? Yes. It can be used right
now in a home setting, as long as you do not need to have password
protection (such as if you live alone), and as long as the noise of
the touchpad buttons is not important (which for me is during regular
daylight hours). Anyway, that is all I will report for now. It may
be a long time before I have more to add.
[2008/08/13], minor changes [2008/08/17]
In the above announcement regarding the Chicago schools fund raising, Acer's advertising people called the Acer One ideal for classroom use. It is far from ideal for such use. See my earlier posting on Aug, 17 (updated from Aug. 13) about a month ago. The problems I noted then are still present, as well as a couple more that I did not mention at that time.
The BIOS has still not been updated. Aside from its lack of support for a startup password, there is another bug that I encountered. I was able to create a password to lock out Supervisor level, that could not be entered later. That meant that I could no longer make any changes to my BIOS settings, such as changing the order in which devices are read at boot. Since I was booting from hard drive first, I would have been unable to update my BIOS. That is a "Catch-22" where I need to be able to access the BIOS settings in order to fix the bug by updating the BIOS. This bug is, in that regard dangerous and should have been fixed by now. In fact, I would have reported it to Acer, but Acer has not provided a bug reporting system. I would call that a "bug" in their company's customer support system. That is another bug that should be fixed.
Another problem regarding classroom use is that the batteries available
for the Acer One are not long enough for "school use". School use needs
battery life of about 7 hours. Testing indicates that the 3 cell batteries,
which is the only batteries available right now, are only good for about
an hour and a half. And there is a shortage of batteries in the industry.
Current indications are that the battery shortage will not be solved in
the industry overall, till about the middle of next year. There is no
indication that Acer will be able to supply large quantities of extra
batteries to extend the use of Acer Ones in the classroom. While I would
not blame Acer specifically for not having more batteries available,
I could not have recommended it for classroom use this year, even for that
reason alone. And looking at other issues -- particularly the noisy touchpad
buttons, I would certainly not recommend it for classroom, even if the
battery problem was solved. That does not mean it cannot have educational
value. But it is more limited in respect to classroom use than some other
brand products.
[2008/09/14]
I do not usually report on BIOS upgrades since they are usually little
more than minor changes. However, the Acer Aspire One was launched with
a BIOS that was so limited and buggy that it substantially added to my
decision to recommend that people limit its range of uses. As of
Sept. 16, 2008, a new (version 0.3304) BIOS has been released. I
have not tried it, and there are no details regarding changes. But one
assumes that BIOS upgrades in this situation are generally a positive
occurance. If I have the time, I might change my report later. It is
available for download through there usual Support download website
for North America.
[2008/09/17]
Copyright 2008/12/11 by James Omura, Toronto, Ontario, Canada