Netbook Spags...

[Salty]

I've had two. A little red ASUS which was light, quick to start up, good keyboard, performed very well. I now have a Dell mini 1012 which has an HD screen and a sim card so I have internets anywhere. The machine is suitable to my needs but nothing to brag about. I need to up the RAM as 1GB just doesn't do it for me.  It's feels about twice as heavy as the ASUS but it's still comfortable in a bag.

Dual-booting on the Dell caused problems due to the somethinggrub2dellsomething. With windows7 starter (which seems to be designed for children) the shut down time was something near forEVAR with ubuntu 10.10 netbook it's 5 sec which is handy since I usually have to GTFO as fast as I can. If you have winXP I've heard it runs fine on netbooks.

[Richter]

Windows 7 is slick, and you can slim it down, but you can't beat the lower requirements of XP for netbooks. 

If bearable though, I've prefered the less system - hungry, virus and ad/spy/scumware prone linux.  Running the necessary virus and scanning programs for either windows would burden the system a lot more.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Windows 7 is slick, and you can slim it down, but you can't beat the lower requirements of XP for netbooks. 

If bearable though, I've prefered the less system - hungry, virus and ad/spy/scumware prone linux.  Running the necessary virus and scanning programs for either windows would burden the system a lot more.

Linux requires forbidden knowledge.  It can only end in unrelenting horror.

[Jasper]

Linux is what? 

I've never had any problems like that, and I've never used any kind of added protection.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Linux is what? 

I've never had any problems like that, and I've never used any kind of added protection.

Keep smirking, laughing boy.  You'll be sneering out the other side of your skull when Zalgo gets his mitts on you.

[Jasper]

Of course I've never used any disreputable distributions... like Slackware.   

Wha- AH SHI-

++SMUG ERROR.  WIPING DISK++

[Vaud]

I think Ubuntu is tops.

[Richter]

Windows 7 is slick, and you can slim it down, but you can't beat the lower requirements of XP for netbooks. 

If bearable though, I've prefered the less system - hungry, virus and ad/spy/scumware prone linux.  Running the necessary virus and scanning programs for either windows would burden the system a lot more.

Linux requires forbidden knowledge.  It can only end in unrelenting horror.

Linux is the crawling chaos.  It acts JUST like a bootleg copy of windows, all serene and helpful.  There is a hint of the horror in the   Then you try to do the ONE FORBIDDEN THING, and fall scremaing into the blackness of the command prompt.  From there, you can either speak correctly the proper invocations, and command the pallid green cursor in the proper applications of SUDO, or dwell forever in the nightmare.

[Luna]

Windows 7 is slick, and you can slim it down, but you can't beat the lower requirements of XP for netbooks. 

If bearable though, I've prefered the less system - hungry, virus and ad/spy/scumware prone linux.  Running the necessary virus and scanning programs for either windows would burden the system a lot more.

Linux requires forbidden knowledge.  It can only end in unrelenting horror.

Linux is the crawling chaos.  It acts JUST like a bootleg copy of windows, all serene and helpful.  There is a hint of the horror in the   Then you try to do the ONE FORBIDDEN THING, and fall scremaing into the blackness of the command prompt.  From there, you can either speak correctly the proper invocations, and command the pallid green cursor in the proper applications of SUDO, or dwell forever in the nightmare.

Well, that sounds like fun.   

[Don Coyote]

Windows 7 is slick, and you can slim it down, but you can't beat the lower requirements of XP for netbooks. 

If bearable though, I've prefered the less system - hungry, virus and ad/spy/scumware prone linux.  Running the necessary virus and scanning programs for either windows would burden the system a lot more.

Linux requires forbidden knowledge.  It can only end in unrelenting horror.

Linux is the crawling chaos.  It acts JUST like a bootleg copy of windows, all serene and helpful.  There is a hint of the horror in the   Then you try to do the ONE FORBIDDEN THING, and fall scremaing into the blackness of the command prompt.  From there, you can either speak correctly the proper invocations, and command the pallid green cursor in the proper applications of SUDO, or dwell forever in the nightmare.

Is it wrong that this aroused me and my curiosity to fool around with LINUX?

[Jasper]

It's just about right. 

Beware Sudo.  Read the fucking manual.  RE Read the fucking manual.

[Rumckle]

I'm fairly sure most netbooks these days will have no trouble doing all of those, Suu. Mine is about or so years old, and it can do most of those (haven't tried power point yet). Also, most I've looked at lately come with windows.

It's just about right. 

Beware Sudo.  Read the fucking manual.  RE Read the fucking manual.

Heh, one thing I like about my 1st Gen EeePC is that if I screw up while screwing around I just reboot the thing with original settings (which I've done a fair few times). Just as long as I remember to back up my stuff before I go poking around.

[Jasper]

Yeah, and if you're running ubu then a nuke and pave rarely takes more than a painless hour or so.  Not bad.

[Richter]

Half an hour if you've got a thumb drive with the sortware prepped.  Silly easy to do. 

Windows 7 is slick, and you can slim it down, but you can't beat the lower requirements of XP for netbooks. 

If bearable though, I've prefered the less system - hungry, virus and ad/spy/scumware prone linux.  Running the necessary virus and scanning programs for either windows would burden the system a lot more.

Linux requires forbidden knowledge.  It can only end in unrelenting horror.

Linux is the crawling chaos.  It acts JUST like a bootleg copy of windows, all serene and helpful.  There is a hint of the horror in the   Then you try to do the ONE FORBIDDEN THING, and fall scremaing into the blackness of the command prompt.  From there, you can either speak correctly the proper invocations, and command the pallid green cursor in the proper applications of SUDO, or dwell forever in the nightmare.

Is it wrong that this aroused me and my curiosity to fool around with LINUX?

It's kind of the point, near as I can figure.  The fact that so much of the support is user-documented on forums and poorly organized mini-wikis can get frustrating though.

[Triple Zero]

It's just about right. 

Beware Sudo.  Read the fucking manual.  RE Read the fucking manual.

no man, abuse the FUCK out of that sudo. get to know it before you've got the netbook long enough that there's anything important to lose. after that, put your data on a stick and KEEP ABUSING THAT SUDO. the system won't ever break. otherwise you reboot Ubuntu from another stick and fix it from there (by abusing the SUDO).

aaaaaaaaaaaaanyway.

before that I ran XP on my netbook, which also did the trick very well. I really don't want to evangelize Linux or anything. Use what works for you.

(Okay maybe a little: it's a lot easier than it used to be, and you'll learn a more "hands-on" feeling of maintaining your computer's operating system. A bit like the ability to open a trunk and fix bits when your car breaks down. Linux is like the old cars that have mechanical bits, need a bit of maintenance and whatever broke, you could always fix it. Windows is more like the newer cars, they work smooth and fast and comfortable initially, you may be able to fix some things yourself, but as they inevitably break down badly, you'll find there are no replacement parts or you need to get the fix at the official dealer "because the problem is within the software". Just like the story in Zen & The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. -- I have nearly zero experience with MacOSX, so I'm not including it in the comparison)



About netbooks.

I got mine 2 years ago. About a month or two after the february fire consumed my desktop machine.

As far as I've seen the 10.1" screen models are still pretty much the same as they were. Just a bit cheaper and a bit bigger harddisks. They all have an Intel Atom processor, they all still have only 1GB of RAM (upgrade to 2 is possible but I never seen them sold with 2GB) and a VGA output, and a SD card reader, Wifi and everything. They all have a screen resoution of 1024x600 (which is not much, especially vertical space, but it works).

I never had the problem hooking it up to a TV with much higher resolution via VGA cable, though. Maybe Sigmatic's one was an old model with cranky hardware?

The big difference, as someone already pointed out is the number of battery cells. Get at least 6. Get more if possible. Twice as many cells means twice as much battery time. Which means twice as useful

Another difference is how much harddisk space they have. Best to ignore that. Mine got 160GB, the newer ones have 250GB, it matters little, because you don't want to keep your important data on a little machine that you're going to carry everywhere anyway. I put my important stuff on sticks, SD cards and online, and fill my harddisk space with video TV series and movies, which I can delete whenever.

Apart from that, find a cheap one in a nice colour and be happy about it. I can't recommend any specific models or brands because it's all different over there in the US, but the hardware is pretty much the same, has been since a year or two.


Now recently I saw a 12" model in the shop. They're a bit more expensive, but they have a bit more screen space (1300x768 or something) and a bit more RAM. I might get one, they seem nice. For comparison, I saw a white 10.1" model for 199 euro (Acer or ASUS, I forgot) and the 12" (I think Acer) was 379 euros.