[fdalbor]

As I have wandered thru the world of Linux on the 1010 I have run across quite a few references and posts about different Linux's that work and don't work on the 1010.

I keep getting vague and second hand information about a OS called PixieLive. While I have been able to get to the web site it is pretty vague itself. Has anyone downloaded this OS or have any information about just what PixieLive is and does it really support the 1010 as well as Jolicloud or Ubuntu (9.04,9.10,10.04,10.10).

Any information would be appreciated. fdalbor

[Isthmus]

Did a little research and you are right there isn't much literature on it. according to softpedia it is a Gentoo (Slax) based distribution which includes support for the Intel GMA500 GPU (which is infamous for having been popular and poorly supported by linux distros - I should know, I have a computer with it ). Here is the softpedia article which includes some screenshots as well:

Download PixieLive 1.0 for Linux - Linux Live for Netbooks - Softpedia

Based on what I can see of those pics, It looks like the the desktop environment is LXDE, which is really light and perfectly suited for Netbooks (which is another of this distros targets).

I also found an old post in the Slax forum which is an early preview of this distro and tracks it's development. It also give you the contact for the developer:

Slax forum: New Live Distro for GMA500 netbooks INCOMING!

[fdalbor]

Thanks for the info; it was a big help in taking my Linux 1010 experience to another level. Seems like this was a major effort by one guy to build his own distro. It also seems he had some help from a few other Linux guru's.

After visiting the sites you so kindly provided links to I find it utterly amazing that they managed to do (with little resources) things with the GMA 500 chipset that other much larger operations have done. Maybe Mandriva; Ubuntu and Jolicloud should hire these guys to contribute to the their efforts.

Sadly I have a feeling that little more effort will be put into making things work with the GMA 500 chipset. I doubt we will see any more netbooks made that use the 'red headed step child' we know as GMA 500. Can't really blame anyone; with no more netbooks using the chipset it will slowly sink into the sunset.

I will continue to struggle on with my 1010 using Jolicloud, Mandriva and Ubuntu (and of course XP). Isthmus I know how you feel. Sometimes I feel like we are brothers in futility. Good luck fdalbor

[fdalbor]

Finally after a great deal of effort I got Pixie to install to a USB drive. It was a major effort to get the ISO to start with and even alot more effort to get it working.

While I am sure the guys who created it put in a great deal of work to get it working it is not going to give you anything you can't get from Ubuntu; Mandriva or Joli. Plus it is almost impossible to get any answers when you run into a problem. In short; it would probably be better (unless you are a REAL Linux guru) to leave this one alone. Sorry, fdalbor

[Markess]

fdalbor,

Isthmus noted that Pixie Live uses LXDE as its desktop environment. If you liked the speed of LXDE with Pixie, there is an Ubuntu/LXDE variant available called Lubuntu. It worked very well for me on my Mini 9. I'm not sure how it does with GMA 500 though.

Mark

[fdalbor]

Thanks for the update; I think I will download it and try it on my 1010 (which already has the GMA graphics enabled with 10.04). I have a backup copy (10.04)on a spare 4gig USB drive so if it goes south for the winter its no big deal.
Pixie worked OK; but it was very limited as to what I could add to it. Still I find it amazing that they got as far as they did with the GMA 500 graphics considering the problems Ubuntu; Mandriva and Joli had getting them to work. My hats off to them.I will download the LXDE desktop and give it a wrill. fdalbor