Ubuntu NBR on Samsung NC10

So after playing around with Arch Linux on my NC10 I decided to try out Ubuntu NBR (Netbook Remix) 9.04 on it.
So far it’s been quite pleasant. The NBR launcher interface is very nice and more adapted to the small screen than a regular desktop. Everything worked out of the box. Well almost. Two things needs a little tweaking, sound recording from the internal mic and suspending.

The sound recording issue is easy to fix. Open up the volume control and set the front mic levels quite high. Front mic boost should be turned off. Under recording, set the capture level to quite high as well (And make sure it’s not muted). Finally set the input source to front mic. That should be it! (If you can’t see some of the tracks mentioned above, enter settings in the volume control window and tick the tracks that are not there to make them show up in the mixer window)
You can now test your settings out in the sound recorder application, they will most likely need some fiddling before they’re perfect. Also, the volume on this laptop (Yes, I refuse to call it a netbook because it’s a silly word) is quite low in Linux. I don’t know if there is a way around that.

Now, the suspending issue. According to this bug report the NC10 has a problem resuming from being suspended. The solution it seems is to reboot the computer and when the Samsung logo appears press F2 to enter the BIOS. When in the BIOS, Press F11 and then F12 followed by an arrow key. A new hidden menu called Intel will appear. Enter this menu and then ICH Control Sub-Menu -> Integrated Device Control Sub-Menu -> SATA – Device 31, Function 2. Change this value from Compatible to Enhanced. When exiting the BIOS, save your changes and boot into your Ubuntu system. Suspend should now work fine (To be honest, I never tried suspending in Ubuntu myself before applying this work around, so I can’t say for sure it didn’t work before. However quite a few people seems to have reported this bug).

Now, enjoy your NC10 and shiny new Ubuntu NBR system. I will.