Re: GNAT & GPS on Linpus Linux

["Alex R. Mosteo" <alejandro@mosteo.com>]

gautier_niouzes@hotmail.com wrote:

> Hello,
> I am about to buy a mini-laptop with the Linpus operating system
> installed, which is a variety of Linux if I understand well.
> Did someone have experiences with GNAT and GPS (GPL) on such a beast ?
> Any advice about which version / distro / whatever to use ?
> I have close to zero experience with Linux and would like to keep the
> maintenance to the minimum - in order to keep enough time for
> programming :-).

Perhaps you refer to an Acer Aspire One, which comes with linpus (I have 
one). I don't like the linpus variant (is an old Fedora 8 with some custom 
packages that prevent proper use of the full F8 repos), but I still keep it 
because I love the ultra-fast boot. However, if some day it breaks, I will 
go for either eeebuntu or the ubuntu netbook remix variants. I've read that 
most hardware in the aa1 is functional with these, barring some minor 
things.

To your question: never tried to install gnat on linpus, but certainly it 
works on ubuntu, and you can get ubuntu running on the aa1 with relative 
ease (although if you have the 512M ram version it can be a real problem. It 
will boot to desktop okay, but once you open a firefox and something else it 
will be a lazy dog. And gnat/gcc can require some good memory sometimes).

OTOH, once you break out of the default linpus gui, with yum you can install 
a great deal of F8 packages, which may allow for gnat on linpus. Never 
tried, though.

However you say you have little linux experience, and I'm afraid that in any 
case you'll need some initial tinkering for any of the options to succeed. 
So brace yourself... ;)

Some links:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne
http://www.eeebuntu.org/
http://www.canonical.com/projects/ubuntu/unr