Empower your Netbook using Linux

Netbook has now become a major segment of the computer market. Netbooks are miniature of laptops and less powerful. If you are not a power user, no need to buy a powerful and costly laptop. The price of Netbook is affordable to everybody's pocket; especially for students and research scholars. The users can buy from the price range between Rs. 12000 to 20000. Netbooks are lightweight and convenient to carry while travelling. Renowned brands like Dell, HP, Asus and Acer have Netbook range of products.

Advantages

• Netbooks are enough for basic computing purposes like net browsing, word processing, audio and video playing.
• Lightweight and easy to carry. 1.25 kg is the average weight of a Netbook.
• Very compact size; the screen size between 11 to 12 inches. Easy to fit into the backpack.
• Long battery life.

Disadvantages

The processor power of Netbook not able to handle games and other powerful computing tasks. Netbooks often powered by less powerful processors like Intel Celeron.
Netbook has no DVD drive.

How to buy

Online stores showcase Netbooks of all brands. If you have patience, wait for offer time at online stores. Buy a case along with the netbook from the online store.

With or without an operating system?

Netbooks are available preloaded with operating systems; Windows/Linux/FreeDOS. Netbooks can perform well with Linux. Windows is not essential for your work, avoid to buy Netbook preloaded Windows. Preloaded Windows will increase the cost of minimum Rs. 4000 extra. Buy Netbook with Linux/FreeDOS (no extra cost for the operating system) and install a lightweight Linux like Lubuntu/Bodhi Linux. Lubuntu and Bodhi consume only very little computing power and can give good battery life. Netbook has no DVD drive and write the Linux image in a pen drive or use an external DVD drive.

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Screen brightness problem with Acer ES1-131 and Debian 8 (Jessie)

I installed Debian 8 (Jessie) XFCE and LXDE desktop on Acer ES1-131 Netbook. I could successfully installed Debian. But problem is that, not able reduce the brightness of screen. Short cut key for brightness control not working.

The real problem with the Linux kernel. Default kernel version could not identify the Intel driver. You can find that /sys/class/backlight will be empty. Brightness control folder and files should be reside here.

How to solve it?
Solution is that upgrade the kernel of Debian.

Update the kernel
Check the current version of kernel using following command in a terminal,
su
uname -a

It will show the kernel version information.
Update sources list
Open following file using any editor, here I used leafpad editor,
leafpad /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sources.list
Add following lines,

deb http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main
deb-src http://http.debian.net/debian jessie-backports main
Save the file and close it.

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

Install the kernel
Check the kernel versions available,

apt-cache search linux-image
It result list of kernel versions.
Install the latest version of kernel,
apt-get install -t jessie-backports linux-image-amd64

Restart the system

apt-get clean

init 6 

Check the new kernel version

uname -a

Visit again the folder /sys/class/backlight and you can find a new folder intel_backlight. It means the new kernel identify the Intel driver.

Change the brightness

leafpad /sys/class/backlight/intel_backlight/brightness 

and add the value 400. Save and close the file.

Now screen brightness under your control.
You can manage screen brightness using xrandr and xbacklight commands from terminal.

Reference

How to upgrade the Linux Kernel of debian 8 jessie
https://gist.github.com/minazou67/4bf63b463347558f3f01

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