USER MANUAL

Table of Contents

Introduction! 3
What"s in the Box?! 4
Hardware Explained! 5
Booting Up ! 6
BIOS Explained! 6
BIOS Tips! 7
Login Screen! 8
Now What?! 9
Write a Document! 9
Create a Spreadsheet, Make a Presentation! 12
Get Online (Wired or Wi-Fi)! 13
Browse the Web! 14
Instant Message! 15
Setup Thunderbird Email Program! 16
Add Updates! 20
Adding Applications! 20
Tutorial 1: Install the game Pingus! 21
Tutorial 2: Install Skype, Flash, VLC ! 26
Build and Destroy a City ! 30
Ditto a Civilization! 31
Finding, Downloading Video Tutorials! 32
Change the Monitor"s Resolution! 32
Change the Desktop Background! 32
When Computers Dream! 34
Set Root Password! 35

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 Introduction

Do you ever notice how marketing material tends to be stylish, colourful, easy to read,
and loaded with photos? User manuals, by contrast, tend to be dull, monochrome, hard
to read, and lack pictures?
Full colour printing may still be an indulgence, but we"d like this manual to be as exciting
as the tiny, rugged, 8 Watt computer you just bought. And we want it to be useful whether
you"ve only known Microsoft your whole life, work as an embedded Linux developer, or
have never before interacted with a computer.

We view computers as appliances - simple objects hired to perform a few tasks well. The
E2 excels at fulfilling basic computing needs - we want you to be accomplishing things
within 20 minutes of turning it on.

This guide is our attempt at ensuring that, but to make it better for future users, we need
to hear from you. Are there sections you"d like us to add? Features not covered? Prob-
lems you"ve encountered? Please let us know...drop us a line at manual@aleutia.com.

We"ll incorporate your suggestions in our user manual, we"ll put them on wiki.aleutia.com
and you"ll help more users get things done.

Best Regards and Happy Computing,

Team Aleutia
London, UK

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 What"s in the Box?

ALEUTIA E2 Mini Computer

AC Power Supply (US, UK, or EU)

USB Travel Optical Mouse (with retractable cord)

Aleutia USB+PS/2 Waterproof, Rollable QWERTY Keyboard (US Configuration)

4GB Compact Flash Card with Ubuntu 8 (Hardy Heron) OS Pre-Installed.

VESA Mounting Screws (to mount it on the back of most monitor"s 100mm x 100mm
VESA Mount)

User Manual

Mounting your E2 on the back of any VESA-

mount LCD takes less than a minute, and
creates a zero-footprint PC.
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 Hardware Explained

The front face of the E2 consists of:

Compact Flash slot

2 x USB 2.0 Ports

Audio In Port (for Micro-
phones)

Audio Out Port (for

Headphones, speakers)

Power Button (to turn the

unit on)

Indicator LED lights - the LED noted by a lightbulb icon turns on when the E2 is on; the
LED noted by a cylinder blinks when the CF card is being accessed (to save a file for
instance).

The rear face of the E2 consists of:

Power port

PS/2 port (to connect PS/2 Key-

board)

VGA Port (to connect display)

10/100 Mbps Ethernet Port

USB 2.0 Port

On/Off Switch

Question: What do the labels COM1,

COM2, and WLAN refer to?

Answer: For developers, we offer a cus-

tom board with 2 RS232 Serial ports and
an integrated Wi-Fi chip. To keep pro-
duction simple, we print the same labels
on both boards.

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 Booting Up

Now that we"ve gone over all the ports on the E2, let"s turn it on!

Insert the Compact Flash card into the CF card slot in the front. You"ll need to press it in
all the way until it clicks into place.

Next, connect all your peripherals. In the back, connect:

your power supply to the power port on the left.

your keyboard to either the PS/2 port or one of the USB ports (front or back).
your monitor to the 15-Pin VGA Port on the back. (The E2 can support monitors
with resolutions of up to 1920x1440.)

your mouse to one of the USB ports

Flick the power switch in the rear so that the dotted-half of the switch is pushed in.
Press the Power button in front. The green light will go on and your E2 will start to boot!

BIOS Explained

BIOS stands for Basic Input/Output System. It"s essentially the firmware on the PC and it
enables you to change hardware settings before the Operating System starts to load.
Most of the time, you"ll never need to interact with it, but there are times when you"ll need
to.

For instance, if you were installing a new OS from a USB CD Drive or a USB Thumb-
drive, you"d need to tell the BIOS to boot from that other device. This would be done by
hitting F11 (which brings up a list of bootable devices) or by entering the BIOS Setup Util-
ity and moving the right arrow key to Boot. You can then use the Up and Down arrow
keys to move between Boot Settings Configuration, Boot Device Priority, and Hard
Disk Drives. Select Boot Device Priority by pressing Enter and you can set the system
to first boot from the USB CD Drive or Thumbdrive.

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 BIOS Tips

Get in Quick!

You have a very short amount of time to enter the BIOS. The E2 loads the OS very
quickly and sometimes the monitor to which the E2 is attached will take a few seconds to
turn on, by which time the BIOS will have gone and the OS will have started to load.
To enter the BIOS Setup Utility, you"ll have to press the Delete key (DEL) within the first 2
seconds of the E2 being turned on.
Slow down the BIOS
If you"re doing development work on the E2 and want to slow the BIOS down so you al-
ways have more time to enter the Setup Utility, go:
Boot > Boot Settings Configuration > Quick Boot

and switch from Enabled to Disabled (by pressing the enter key, moving the Up arrow to
Disabled, pressing Enter again). This will give you an extra 5 seconds or so before the
the OS loads.

A Cleaner Start

You can also remove all the text at the beginning, essentially providing a blank screen
until the OS loads. This would usually be useful for demonstrations, when all that text
might prove distracting, or in public areas where you wouldn"t want people to change the
BIOS. To do this, go:

Boot > Boot Settings Configuration > Quiet Boot

and switch from Enabled to Disabled.

Save Your Changes

When you"re all done be sure to press F10 to Save and Exit.

Boot from Another Device

As outlined above, just press F11 in the first 2 seconds of the E2 being turned on and you
can select which device (CF Card, USB CD Drive, USB Pendrive, USB Hard Drive, etc.)
to boot from.
Boot from the Network

Press F12 in the first 2 seconds.

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 Login Screen

116 Seconds from when the E2 is turned on, the Login Screen above will appear. (Some
systems are pre-configured to go directly to the desktop. If you don"t see the Login
Screen, don"t worry. You"ll need the password to add applications and change some set-
tings though so make a note of them.)

All Aleutia E2 computers have the following login:

Username: aleutia

Password: 123456

And system name: aleutia-desktop.

Congratulations - you!re now in! A whole new world of superior computing lies
within your grasp!
 Now What?
We could go through ways to change various settings but that belongs at the back of this
manual. You can look it up when you need to. We"ve always liked to think of computers
as appliances - simple objects that you hire to perform a few tasks well. Our customers
tend to buy E2s to get things done so let"s focus on getting a few things done right
away...

Write a Document
Paper is an excellent technology (reads well in sunlight, doesn"t require batteries, easily
annotated), but a good word processor has some advantages. WordPerfect dominated
this market in the 1980s, before giving way to Microsoft, whose expensive Office software
suite has become synonymous with word processing. Happily, this isn"t particularly com-
plicated software to design and Ubuntu includes a great alternative in OpenOffice, which
is a) practically identical to MS Office 2003 b) fully compatible with MS Office c) better
supported than MS Office d) free

To access OpenOffice Word Processor, go to Applications > Office > OpenOffice Word
Processor, as detailed below:

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This will launch OpenOffice 2.4 in about 10 seconds. You"ll be presented with a new
document, and icons nearly identical to Microsoft Word. Create a document such as this:

When you want to save your document, just go to: File > Save As

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And here"s the best part: you can not only export it as a PDF (something you can"t do
with MS Word), but you can save it in a Microsoft .doc file format! That means you can
email the document to anyone running MS Word and they can read it. Of course, anyone
can email you a .doc file and you can just open it (and edit it) in OpenOffice...

Just give your file a name (Aleutia Document), choose a folder to save into (Documents),
and then select the File type. OpenOffice has its own file type (.odt) but if you scroll
down a bit you"ll see the Microsoft Word option (.doc).

Friendly Tip
Want to back up your .doc and .pdf files online or share/edit them with others?

You can set up a Google account (or use an existing one) on http://docs.google.com and
upload .doc, .xls, and .ppt files.
Or you can visit www.scribd.com, which is a bit better and upload those filetypes (plus
PDFs).

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 Create a Spreadsheet, Make a Presentation
Similar stuff. Go to: Applications > Office > OpenOffice Spreadsheet.

After a few seconds, it"ll load a new spreadsheet. As with OpenOffice Word Processor,
you can save your file in Microsoft Excel"s .xls format.

Lastly, we have OpenOffice"s answer to Microsoft Powerpoint and Apple"s Keynote. It"s
not as good as either of these unfortunately, but it"s much better than online offerings
such as the online Google Docs" Presentation software. And you can save it as .ppt file,
which means it can be read by Powerpoint. (You can also save in OpenOffice"s file for-
mat, .odp, or in PDF format.

Find it in: Applications > Office > OpenOffice Presentation.

Friendly Tip
Want to publicize your Powerpoint (.ppt) or Presentation (odp) or PDF Presentations
or browse others?
Check out www.slideshare.com - you can upload files there and tag them so that
other visitors find them. It can be a good way to get an idea out and certainly a great
way to get inspiration from other presentations.

Don!t forget: the E2 has a VGA port in back so you can plug it directly into most projec-
tors and save yourself lugging around a laptop!

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 Get Online (Wired or Wi-Fi)
Ubuntu is excellent for connecting online. You can plug an Ethernet cable into the Ether-
net port in back and Ubuntu will connect you to an Auto DHCP connection without any

other prompts. If you"re connecting online via static IP, you"ll need to manually configure
your settings. Hover the pointer over the Network icon (two computers) and the network
menu will appear (as above). Select manual configuration.

Wireless - Easier on Ubuntu than Any Other OS!

One of the best things about Ubuntu is its outstanding wealth of
drivers. If you want a want to add a Wi-Fi dongle to your Windows
computer or even your Mac, you always have to waste time click-
ing through boring Set Up wizards, installing drivers from a CD,
and adding mediocre wireless software. Not anymore!
Ubuntu has drivers for practically ever printer, Wi-Fi dongle, or webcam out there. Even
USB Wi-Fi dongles that claim to only work on Windows will still work fine on Ubuntu. Just
plug it in to one of the 3 USB 2.0 ports, and you"ll be online within about 20 seconds. (To
select the right wireless network and login, just hover your pointer over that same Net-
work icon). Specific wireless dongles we recommend are: the Iogear GWU523 (pictured),
the Belkin F5D5070, and the Netgear WG111T.
 Browse the Web

Now that you"re online, you may even want to browse the web. Firefox
is a fantastic program for doing this, but the latest release is a bit beefy
and takes sometime to startup. That"s why we include Firefox 2 (re-
leased July, 2007) and not Firefox 3 Beta 5 (released April, 2008) as
the latter is still a bit too beta.

For customers on a slow connection, we"ve added Dillo - a great bare-

bones web browser that strips videos, flash, and general complexity from webpages. It
lets you quickly see the text and pics you needed.

To use either of these, go:

Applications > Internet > and then choose Dillo or Firefox 2.

Firefox Add-ons: No More Online Ads! Grab Videos from YouTube!

Because Firefox is open source, all sorts of great add-ons have been designed for it.
Once you"ve opened Firefox go to: https://addons.mozilla.org/

Downloading them is easy. Just click Add to Firefox and the Firefox browser will down-
load and install the program. You"ll have to restart Firefox, but that"s it.

Some of our favourites are:

-Video DownloadHelper: This lets you download files from YouTube and other flash
video sites, which you can then watch locally, without requiring any Internet connection.

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-AdBlock Plus: an amazing plugin that removes all ads from websites, including those
annoying flash banner ads! (Can be disabled at anytime.)

-R-kiosk: Locks down the web browser, lets you setup blacklisted (or whitelisted) sites.
Ideal if you"re using the E2 in a public area and want to make sure it can only be used to
access certain websites.

Instant Message
Ubuntu 8 comes with a great Instant Messaging client called Pidgin. This lets you use
several IM accounts (including MSN, Yahoo, Google Talk, ICQ, AIM, QQ, etc.) at once.
You can find it in:

Applications > Internet > Pidgin Internet Messenger.

Click Add to start adding accounts and select from the drop down menu which account
you want to add:

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 Setup Thunderbird Email Program
Ubuntu 8 includes the Evolution Mail client, but we prefer another open source option,
Mozilla Thunderbird. Mozilla is a well-funded organization thanks to their success with
Firefox and provides great support for Mozilla. You"ll find it in:

Applications > Internet > Mozilla Thunderbird Mail/News

You"ll be prompted to add an account and see this window:

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There"s a wizard specifically for Google Mail accounts, but I"ll configure my Gmail account using the stan-
dard email wizard. If you"re using Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, or corporate email make sure to find out the IMAP or
POP settings first and make sure your account is capable of forwarding.

IMAP has the advantage of synchronizing with other accounts so that if you delete an email on the Thun-
derbird program, it will also be deleted on your webmail account. It"s ideal if you access your email from lots
of different devices. POP just lets you access your email from a client (so like IMAP you have local copies)
but doesn"t synchronize.

Here we"ll be using POP. First set up your name:

And then select POP or IMAP:

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You can gather the Incoming Server and Outgoing Server details from your webmail ac-
count (whether Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc.) by checking in the Settings section. If you"re
using corporate email, check with your organization"s IT department. But usually they fol-
low this pattern (pop/smtp).

Add your username:

And then provide a name for the account:

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 Lastly, approve everything:

Once the account is set up, you can configure settings, such as your password.

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 Add Updates
We ship out E2s with the Ubuntu OS as updated as possible but over time, more updates
will be released, including important security updates. These will appear in the top right
corner and be designated by an arrow pointing down (you"ll also get a pop-up box ap-
pearing usually). Click on the arrow and it will show you how many updates are available
and how large the downloads are. Typically, it will take between 10 and 15 minutes to add
these updates though, of course, you can do other things in the background.

Adding Applications
Another huge win for Linux - it is so easy to install stuff! No need to tinker with Set Up
Wizards and buggy Installation CDs. Ubuntu includes a local directory of nearly 25,000
official programs, any of which can be downloaded and installed with minimal work (and
you can download several at a time). You can also remove programs that you"ve installed
(or that were part of the OS) here too.

Synaptic - Unbelievably Useful

This directory is known as Synaptic Package Manager, and we"ll get to it by going:

System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager

This will load up an enormous directory of official programs that you can browse by cate-
gory or search for by name/description. There are also downloadable applications on

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various sites (such as www.getdeb.com) but most of the best stuff is here. Here"s what it
looks like:

Tutorial 1: Install the game Pingus

Let"s try adding Pingusi , a free version of the hit game Lemmings. We could browse
through Games to find it, but since we know the name, we"ll just search, by clicking on
the search button (see screenshot above). We then enter our search term pingus:

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Success! After several seconds, the game Pingus (and some data files it requires) comes
up:

We need to click on the blank box to the left and then Mark for Installation:

After clicking the mouse, we"ll be asked whether we want to Mark additional required
changes? (essentially approve the files). Click the Mark button.

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The Synaptic Package Manager will automatically mark the required data files (Pingus-
data) for installation as well. Now we just have to press Apply and installation will begin:

A window will open showing how large the downloaded files will be and what"s being in-
stalled:

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We can see that the files are 12.4MB in total. Provided we have a reasonable Internet
connection and more than 12MB of free space on our CF card or hard drive, we press
Apply.

The files begin downloading:

After Synaptic has downloaded the files it will automatically install those the program. Af-
ter a minute or so, we"ll see this window come up:

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We don"t have to restart the E2. All we have to do to start using Pingus is load it from the
menu, since the installation"s been completely automated:

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 Tutorial 2: Install Skype, Flash, VLC
There"s a couple of programs we"d really like to have pre-installed for you but for silly li-
censing rules, we can"t. This includes Skype, which requires you to personally agree to
their terms and conditions. Happily, the repositories for Skype, Google Earth, and VLC
(a great video player, but one that includes a few codecs that, for licensing reasons, re-
quire the user"s approval) have all been consolidated by the Medibuntu project
(www.medibuntu.org). (Repositories are places where data is stored - a program"s reposi-
tory is the location of all its necessary files.)

In this tutorial, we"ll grab those repositories, and then we"ll be able to download each
program through the Synaptic Package Manager. And then you"ll be able to watch flash
videos, or make free calls.

You!ll need to be online to do this.

Start with the Terminal (Command Line):

Applications > Accessories > Terminal

This gives you a command line interface, which can be the quickest and easiest way to
do certain tasks. You"ll need to type the following in:

sudo wget http://www.medibuntu.org/sources.list.d/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/medibuntu.list

 Type in the command into Terminal (see above).

It prompts you for your password (123456, unless you"ve changed it). When you type in
the numbers, it doesn"t show them appearing (don"t worry, that"s normal). The files are
then downloaded automatically.
Then type in the following command (as outlined above) which adds the GPG key (GNU
Privacy Guard):

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install medibuntu-keyring && sudo apt-get update

This produces a flurry of downloads and then you"re (almost) done.

And Now We Can Add These Applications through Synaptic:

Since we"ve downloaded all those repositories, these license-requiring programs will now
be in Synaptic.

As before, we"ll go: System > Administration > Synaptic Package Manager.

We"ll search for VLC first, though of course it doesn"t matter what order we do it in:

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We"ll mark VLC for installation and it will automatically add the additional files we require.
One of the handy things about Synaptic is you can install multiple programs at once.

With that in mind, let"s now add Skype. Just search for Skype and then mark the program
(skype) for installation. As with VLC, it automatically adds the extra files (skype-common)
you need:

Once the files have downloaded and automatically installed themselves, you can access

Skype in: Applications > Internet > Skype

and VLC in: Applications > Sound and Video > VLC.

Finding, Downloading Video Tutorials

For a company that trumpets the E2 as a business tool capable of anything save video
editing and advanced 3D gaming, we"ve spent quite a bit of time explaining how to install
and play computer games. They make for easy examples (with immediate rewards).

Showmedo.com is a wonderful online resource focussed on providing flash tutorials of

computer software, all of it free and carefully selected. And unlike YouTube, it"s designed
so you can easily download files from there and play them locally.

You"ll need Adobe Flash to view these but when you visit Showmedo.com (or YouTube)
on Firefox, it"ll prompt you to install Adobe Flash and take you to Adobe"s website from
whence you can download it. An easier solutions is to add Flash through Synpatic
(search Adobe Flash). Again, silly licensing rules mean we can"t pre-install it for you.

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 Build and Destroy a City

Back in "89, a game designed by Will Wright was released by a tiny company named
Maxis. The game was SimCity and its enormous success spawned numerous sequels
and the even more popular series, The Sims. Happily, Electronic Arts released the source
code of the original SimCity on January 18th, 2008 under the name Micropolis (Mr.
Wright"s original title for the game).

It"s easy to pick up and not nearly as involved as later titles, and if your attention wanes
from your political responsibilities you can wield all sorts of tragedy, including the glorious
Monster Disaster.

It"s our pleasure to include it on every E2 that we ship..

Applications > Games > Micropolis

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 Ditto a Civilization
Some people prefer simulations to last a bit longer and for those players, we"ve included
FreeCiv, inspired by the Sid Meier!s Civilization series. From Wikipedia:

Players take the role of a tribe leader in 4000 BC and have to guide their people through the centuries.
Over time, new technologies are discovered, which allow the construction of new city buildings and the de-
ployment of new units. Players can wage war on one another or form diplomatic relationships.

The game ends when one civilization has eradicated all others, accomplished the goal of space coloniza-
tion, or at a certain deadline. If more than one civilization remains at the deadline, the player with the high-
est score wins. Points are awarded for the size of a civilization, its wealth, and cultural and scientific ad-
vances.

Want to remove these games (or any other program)?

Go to: Applications > Add/Remove Applications
You can search for any app to remove or you can just browse through Games to find
these specifically.
But at least try Micropolis first...

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 Change the Monitor"s Resolution
Ubuntu is superb at recognizing monitors and selecting the correct resolution but if you
want to change your resolution (for instance to make text much bigger), it"s pretty
straightforward.

Go: System > Preferences > Screen Resolution

And change the resolution from the default (1366 x 768 with the E2 All-in-One).

Change the Desktop Background

This is pretty straightforward. Just go: System > Preferences > Appearance

Here you can change your Windows Theme, Fonts, and the Desktop Background. If you
want to use a photo, just press the Add button.

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 Compress a Folder:
This is useful when you want to email someone a folder of files (and not just attach every
individual file). Email programs won"t usually accept folder attachments, but this way you
can compress the folder into a .zip file. Or you can compress a bunch of folders and files
into a .zip file. (And send it using web-based FTP tools, such as yousendit.com which lets
you send a 100MB file for free.)

Start by putting everything into one folder. Then right-click on that folder and select Cre-
ate Archive as an option.

Next, we"ll see this window (below), which gives us different compression options. .tar.gz
is more common among Linux users, but .zip is more universal. Create it and you"re
done.

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 When Computers Dream
Electric Sheep is the greatest screensaver on the planet. It"s an homage to Philip K.
Dick"s novel of 1968, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It was created by Scott
Draves and is available for Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. When a computer
sleeps, the screensaver loads and communicates online with computers all over the
world and distributes the processing power required to create abstraction animations, or
sheep. And so we see what computers dream, and how rarely they dream the same.

It doesn!t require or use much bandwidth, but if you!re connecting your E2 by satellite or
roaming on your 3G connection you should probably turn it off.

System > Preferences > Screensaver.

It"s selected to Electric Sheep by default - just uncheck the box that reads Activate
screensaver when computer is idle.

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 Set Root Password
You"ll need a root password to do a lot of things. Open a terminal by going:

Applications > Accessories > Terminal

Type: sudo passwd

You"ll be asked for your sudo password (123456 by default).

You can then enter a new UNIX Password. Enter whatever you want and confirm it.

To log in as root, just type: su

and then enter your password.

That"s it for now. We"re alway updating our user manual online, so check back on
www.aleutia.com/products for updates.

And for more resources, we strongly recommend: http://ubuntuforums.org/

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