I want to use a laptop as a proxy for a notebook -- in the sense of the ordinary English word "proxy," not the specific Internet sense. Let me explain.
My wife, with better vision and smaller more adroit hands, will of course get (and I hope enjoy) my present EeePC 701 if she wants it, as soon as I get one big enough for my hands and eyes -- but it will be up to me to get it into the condition she's used to from running Fedora on her full-sized PCs for the last half-dozen years. She has about as much interest in computers as I do in golf.
Suppose I create the live USB stick, and first plug it into a laptop, such as a T30 or T42 Thinkpad, where I have keyboard & monitor that accommodate my hands & eyes far better than the EeePC.
Suppose I then tweak heavily, uninstalling everything we never use (chat, games, telephony, and more), but adding some others (notably Alpine, a dozen years' worth of tweaks to that, a long-nurtured addressbook, her preferred browser, etc.).
When I shutdown, can I make the USB stick adopt all changes, and offer them thenceforward instead of the stock version, the way a Live CD- R of most OSs would do? Or will it perhaps automatically it adopt them?
Supposing I achieve that, can I then run the live USB stick on the EeePC, tell it to install, and have it install my pre-twoken version rather than stock F11??
On Tue, 19 May 2009 17:47:23 +0000 (UTC) Beartooth wrote:
Suppose I create the live USB stick, and first plug it into a laptop, such as a T30 or T42 Thinkpad, where I have keyboard & monitor that accommodate my hands & eyes far better than the EeePC.
If you only issue is keyboard and monitor size, why not set up a stock install on the eeepc (which shouldn't require too much typing), then use ssh and/or vnc to log into it from your larger computer and do your tweaking from there.
I do this all the time when setting up new machines for various purposes.
2009/5/19 Beartooth Beartooth@comcast.net:
I want to use a laptop as a proxy for a notebook -- in the sense of the ordinary English word "proxy," not the specific Internet sense. Let me explain.
My wife, with better vision and smaller more adroit hands, will
ll> of course get (and I hope enjoy) my present EeePC 701 if she wants it, as
soon as I get one big enough for my hands and eyes -- but it will be up to me to get it into the condition she's used to from running Fedora on her full-sized PCs for the last half-dozen years. She has about as much interest in computers as I do in golf.
Suppose I create the live USB stick, and first plug it into a laptop, such as a T30 or T42 Thinkpad, where I have keyboard & monitor that accommodate my hands & eyes far better than the EeePC.
Suppose I then tweak heavily, uninstalling everything we never use (chat, games, telephony, and more), but adding some others (notably Alpine, a dozen years' worth of tweaks to that, a long-nurtured addressbook, her preferred browser, etc.).
When I shutdown, can I make the USB stick adopt all changes, and offer them thenceforward instead of the stock version, the way a Live CD- R of most OSs would do? Or will it perhaps automatically it adopt them?
Supposing I achieve that, can I then run the live USB stick on the EeePC, tell it to install, and have it install my pre-twoken version rather than stock F11??
I don't think this will work. I think the "right" (for some values of right) way to approach this is to boil all your customisations down, such that they can be scripted in a kickstart file and then install from any method you like. The advantage of this approach is twofold:
1) when one has gone to the great putting green in the sky, one's significant other can still reinstall (his|her) laptop. 2) when the above happens, at least (she|he) has something to remember you by.
Seriously though, I feel your pain. I have a eeePC 701 stashed under the bed with only Totem, Terminal and Firefox installed for those times when I can't sleep. I can't even type "ssh" without multiple attempts at deletion and cursing, so I couldn't use it every day.
-- Sam
as soon as I get one big enough for my hands and eyes
Check out www.visikey.net. I just got one of their usb keyboards and it is ever so much easier to type now.
They also sell an overlay that fits some model laptops, might be just the thing if you want to be able to see what the heck is on top of the keys (I don't know why almost no one feels like it is a good idea to make printing big enough to fill the available space - if only visikey designed highway signs... :-).
On Tue, 19 May 2009 12:19:57 -0600, Frank Cox wrote:
On Tue, 19 May 2009 17:47:23 +0000 (UTC) Beartooth wrote:
Suppose I create the live USB stick, and first plug it into a laptop, such as a T30 or T42 Thinkpad, where I have keyboard & monitor that accommodate my hands & eyes far better than the EeePC.
If you only issue is keyboard and monitor size, why not set up a stock install on the eeepc (which shouldn't require too much typing), then use ssh and/or vnc to log into it from your larger computer and do your tweaking from there.
I do this all the time when setting up new machines for various purposes.
Hmmm ... I'm used to doing such things from Synaptic, PackageKit, Pirut of old memory, or other GUI that gives me lists to choose from. I don't know most of the names I want rid of till I see them. I know that ssh -X or -Y exists, but haven't used it much ...
Otoh, I *like* the way your mind works, SIR.
One more clue, please? Like a tutorial site somewhere? I tend to have trouble just with scp inside my LAN (though plain ssh usually works).
On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 23:10 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
I'm used to doing such things from Synaptic, PackageKit, Pirut of old memory, or other GUI that gives me lists to choose from. I don't know most of the names I want rid of till I see them. I know that ssh -X or -Y exists, but haven't used it much ...
ssh -X theirusername@theircomputer
And you can launch graphical programs on their machine, but with the user interface on yours. You type whatever command fires off package kit, etc., and you remotely control it.
On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 18:45 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
I don't know why almost no one feels like it is a good idea to make printing big enough to fill the available space
Educated guesses: It looks better, from a design point of view. And you can see the whole letter past the tip of your fingers, without moving your fingers out of the way.
That said, plenty of keyboards leave a lot to be desired... Really tiny legends, in faint grey, that rubs off...
On 05/19/2009 09:35 PM, Tim wrote:
On Tue, 2009-05-19 at 23:10 +0000, Beartooth wrote:
I'm used to doing such things from Synaptic, PackageKit, Pirut of old memory, or other GUI that gives me lists to choose from. I don't know most of the names I want rid of till I see them. I know that ssh -X or -Y exists, but haven't used it much ...
ssh -X theirusername@theircomputer
And you can launch graphical programs on their machine, but with the user interface on yours. You type whatever command fires off package kit, etc., and you remotely control it.
Alternatively - after you install - set up vinagre (vnc) and just vnc in her desktop will display in a window on your preferred computer. Config from there.
On Tue, 19 May 2009 18:45:11 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
as soon as I get one big enough for my hands and eyes
Check out www.visikey.net. I just got one of their usb keyboards and it is ever so much easier to type now.
Do they roll up for transport? I have one that does, calling itself "The Virtually Indestructible Keyboard," made by www.grandtec.com, though I don't see it on that site now. I don't like it quite so well with a PC as a regular logitech rigid keyboard; but it is indeed a vast improvement on the 701. Trouble is, you have to have a table to set it on, and waiting rooms generally lack tables. If I ever take the little machine to the library, instead of a Thinkpad with Fedora, I'll certainly take the roll-up keyboard; it lives in the EeePC's pack, just for that purpose.
On Wed, 20 May 2009 14:07:19 +0000 (UTC) Beartooth wrote:
Do they roll up for transport?
Nah, its just a regular rigid keyboard with much much bigger letters on the keys.
But if you new laptop is compatible with one of their laptop keyboard overlays, you can get much much bigger letters on a laptop as well :-).