Hello.. I just got my smartbook today.. i was wondering if its possible to get xfce or openbox instead of gnome ? Is it possible? if yes any guidelines?

You can use Ubuntu's repositories to install other window-managers. You can either do this from the Ubuntu software centre, synaptic or on the command line.

I haven't tried xfce or openbox and am not on an ARM machine now, but I did try e17 and it worked fine.
For openbox you probably want to try something like: For a full xfce experience you can try installing 'xubuntu-desktop' but I think 'xfce4-session' will bring in the minimum set of packages for a working xfce configuration.

You can choose the session type before you log in but after you've selected which user to log in as.

I'm currently using Unity-2d from a ppa (personal package archive at https://launchpad.net/~unity-2d-team/+a ... y-2d-daily) and that works quite well, though it uses quite a lot of memory!

Thanks for the reply, gonna give unity a try before trying out xfce or openbox i really dont mind if it uses alot of memory i am only using 1 application at a time anyway

In that case you don't need much of a window manager at all ;). I don't think I'd advocate unity unless you want the integrated menu bar or the launcher part (which is much slower than gnome's menus).

For a 'one app at a time' situation I'd go with Openbox or a custom setup with a window manager like xfwm4 and a simple launcher like Kupfer or lxde's panel (lxpanel, I believe)

yeah but im going with openbox just because of familiarity :)

I would suggest using lxde instead of just openbox. It's not a significant addition in terms of resource usage, but it has many more features.

is there anyway of getting a minimal install of ubuntu and then just add on the packages i need on the smartbook?

It's not supported by Genesi but you might try my headless image that is primarily meant for the smarttop I think it has wpa_supplicant installed on it but I'm not 100% sure. it has no GUI stuff at all just a base ubuntu Maverick + genesi packages. If you can get the wireless going you should be able to install whatever you want from a system thats fairly close to base.

I talk about it in this thread here:
http://www.powerdeveloper.org/forums/vi ... php?t=1975

I would run it from the SD card first and see if you can get it workable on the smartbook first before choosing to install it to the SSD. (you can always just re-install with the genesi installer image though to get the desktop maverick thats factory installed though)

The bits about the LED's blinking do not apply to the smartbook BTW (not that you need them on a machine that has a head)

thanks will give it a try later 2night!