New Laptop problems, please help

[Felizginato12]

Since I don't feel like searching the web for a new message board that might still be active, I decide to pose this question to a community that has helped me with computer problems before.

I just got an Acer Asus laptop for Christmas, the tiny notebooks that come with Linux on them. My father has got himself one as well and we both have experienced some minor technical issues, such as a nonworking camera, and the computer shutting down after a few minutes of not being plugged in (despite it being fully charged). This morning however, I woke up. I had been watching a movie on my laptop and fell asleep to it. I turned the laptop off, set it aside for an hour or so, and came back to it. However, when I came back to it I turned it on, the acer screen popped up, as well as the aspireone screen. After that, my screen went blank, and all I could see is my mouse arrow. I can move it, but thats all. I've searched online and have seen people experiencing the same problem, however, different solutions were given, most of which were not described very well and therefore, far too complicated. I called the technical support and after about an hour of failed solution attempts he suggested that I purchase a USB CD drive, and run the recovery disc by changing my computers boot priority to make it run an external USB CD drive first.

He claimed that to be an automatic solution, however, I do not wish to go purchase more hardware if this is not true. So what i'm asking is, does anybody else know what i'm talking about? If so, how would you solve the problem? Is the recovery disc a sure fire solution or is there a chance I will have to send the computer in for recovery?

Just to clarify it is an Acer Asus aspireone laptop, a tiny notebook that runs linux. http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/technology/acer2.jpg <<< there is a screen shot of the computer I am talking about.

[OldSchoolGamer7]

If you have to run the recovery disc (I'm not sure about your machine,) you should be able to set your built-in CD drive to load first by setting the boot priority in the BIOS. If you don't have a CD drive at all, that would be why you have to get one.

[Felizginato12]

Yeah, I should have been more specific. I do need to buy an external USB CD drive to run the recovery disc. And yes, I did set the boot priority to that option in the BIOS.

I'm just not sure how common these laptops are yet, and they seem to share the same problems all around. I just wanna make sure that running that recovery disc will solve my problems, so that I don't waste time and money having a failed solution, and then having to send the computer back in for repairs.

[OldSchoolGamer7]

I know little about Linux, but running a recovery disc will usually fix problems like that unless the hard drive is corrupted. If you keep having these other problems with the power and whatnot, you may want to send it back for repairs, anyway. I'm sorry, but it sounds like they may have developed a defective machine.

On a similar thread, I've been told by several people that it would be utterly pointless to attempt to downgrade this Acer I bought two months ago back to XP. Granted, it would drive me up the wall to reinstall everything, but I think I'd be all right with my game mods thanks to 6 and a half gigs of flash drive space. I've been told it would be stupid/impossible/whatever because the device drivers are not/will not be supported very long if at all. I can deal with Vista (barely) but I would like to be able to play certain old games that Vista still doesn't support. Is there someone who can aid me in this?

[Ponce]

I do not understand what you mean by Acer Asus. Asus and Acer are two separate companies. Asus is responsible for the EEEPC line of subnotebooks. This is an entirely different computer (Aspire One). I doubt that either the EEEs or the Aspire Ones could feasible handle vista (a well-configured vista install can use half a gig of memory idle. For a desktop this is alright but it will absolutely crush these tiny laptops.) XP is a better option (this is fairly easy to do, but again you have to buy both an external dvd drive as well as a copy of XP to do this legally).

Your computer is using something called Linpus Linux Lite. I have absolutely no experience with this particular distribution of Linux and have not heard of it before now. I do not know if I am simply ignorant or if this is a very obscure distribution (it is certainly not prominent at all). I highly recommend getting a different operating system. You will have a lot of trouble finding support for an operating system with such a small user base.

I do not know what games you refer to, but it is unlikely that any linux distribution will be able to play them right away. You can install things like Wine, Cedega, or DosBox to get them if you like.

You have a few options.

1) Look up whether or not the system has a soft format. This will return the main partition to factory defaults. From what I can see, it doesn't seem to have one. If it does, you can reformat it easily without the need for cds. You will lose ALL personal data.

2) Try installing Ubuntu/Xubuntu in place of the current operating system. It should work fine and there is plenty of support for Ubuntu. Go here to learn how to install ubuntu or xubuntu from a usb key. This avoids the need to purchase an external dvd drive. Go here to find all the information you need on ubuntu. This process will essentially turn a usb key into an install CD for Ubuntu or Xubuntu (I suggest using xubuntu for this computer). You will lose all personal data. The soft reformat option mentioned above will also be removed (if it exists), as will the default operating system.

3) If you are having trouble with the boot loader try Super Grub, but if you can use the mouse then the operating system is likely already loaded. Super Grub is still very helpful if you do end up having boot trouble.

4) Return it and buy an EEE. Same type of machine, but better. Has an easy reformat option that lets you return its software to the state you got it in (assuming you don't going around deleting hard drive partitions in your spare time). You won't need to touch the core of linux. You can install xubuntu easily if it suits you, or get fancy and put arch or something on if you really want to get into it. I don't recommend using the default OS, something like xubuntu is probably a better idea.

Good luck, soldier.