Buying a netbook with Linux

I'll stick with HDD for now, have not had a single failure carting various notebooks (some even from less reputable manufacturers) all over the world for longer than 10 years now. It's unlikely to be different with the HDD in a Netbook - provided one takes due care of the portable device.
 
ponder said:
Dunno, I do that with my quad core desktop with >1TB HD space. The install CD contains a LOT of junk you really do not need and will not miss.
Click to expand...

Yeah but for the normal user that would be an effort, which is why the word 'shoehorning' is so appropriate :D
 
"Anyways whatever the proof of performance is clear on youtube so no further discussion needed :) as you take anandtech as a GOD and cannot fathom that the 1000's of youtube videos are correct :). I am assuming you watched the video i posted and saw how fast ssd's are compared to normal drives?"
Click to expand...



Dude I assure you, my Toshiba HDD based, 1.6GHz ULV C2D system is fast enough for me. It boots fast, runs fast and I don't usually wait for anything - oh wait - I wait for stuff to download! Yeah.... HDD performance is not the limiting issue.


Yeah but how much money did you pay? I'll wait a year and get a REAL SSD made by Intel, Toshiba or Hitachi instead of some unknown company like Patriot or OCZ and pay half of what you paid for a FASTER SSD, with probably double the capacity. But thanks for being an early adopter and being so excited about these things. Guess my age shows, I don't get a hard-on every time something works 'fast'. ;)


Of course there will be cheap Intels. ALL HARDWARE drops in price, there has never been an exception to this rule. You always get better and cheaper.


If I don't buy one in Dubai, I'll buy one for half price in Connecticut next year. My banker will love me more :).
 
Last edited:
The only fault on my Aspire One was the 512MB of RAM. After I upgraded to 1.5GB it flies ... and its awesome. Chucked the Linpus and now run Ubuntu-8.10 netbook remix.

My Netbook is small, light and reliable and it runs Linux. Thats all I care about.
 
asus eee 901 this side, and let me tell you this el-cheapo in a way kind of changed my life (haha sounds like an infomercial doesnt it?) also running 8.10, and being on the run all the time I found this the most convenient piece of hardware yet, it kind of completely took over my 24 grand laptops place just due to its size /battery life, and making my smartphone obsolete in a sense
 
If we're discussing the SSD speed controversy, it does have to be admitted (even though I love my little Acer Aspire One to bits) that the 8GB SSD drive originally installed in this unit is indeed notoriously slow (it's the write-backs which are the slowdown killer, not the reads); they apparently fixed this shortcoming later with faster Samsung SSDs, but I know from my own experience that running XP, even with 1.5 GB of RAM, could be a painful experience involving lots of contemplation and meditation while waiting for the drive to catch up.

But there are all sorts of tweaks and helper apps available free online (they are covered in a devoted thread on this forum) which compensate. I now have the best of both worlds: a machine with a robust SSD using less juice than a HDD equivalent, and running pretty much as fast as the HDD version (I ran informal tests against a friend's HDD version of the same machine). And if you need more storage than the original 8GB (or 16GB in newer models soon I believe), then just slap in a major SD card in one of the two expansion slots.
 
"In mid-February, news broke about a potential issue with Intel's X25-M mainstream solid state drives involving fragmentation and performance slow-downs. At that time, after having the news picked up by everyone from CNet to the Wall Street Journal, Intel stated that it had not seen any of these issues but was working with the source to replicate the problem and find a fix if at all possible. Today Intel has essentially admitted to the problem by releasing a new firmware for the X25-M line that not only fixes the flaws found in the drive initially, but also increases write performance across the board."
Click to expand...

http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/04/13/2332211&art_pos=6

Even Intel SSDs have issues. I wouldn't exactly call it a controversy. It's akin to buying an M5 and then finding out it can just beat a 530i, but only just. For something so expensive, you want a perfect (virtually) product - not one full of early adopter issues.
 
Bumping this thread 18 months later -- many of the links and products in the original article are dead or no longer available.

Is it possible to buy a non-Wind*ws netbook in SA? I'm interested in getting a netbook, but I don't want to pay for an OS I'm not going to use. I've been searching around for a few days, but it seems that all netbooks come pre-installed with that commercial OS. VodaCom's "LinkBook" does not count as it is a "MID" and you cannot install a different OS or even any other third party applications. Dell in the USA sells netbooks with Ubuntu pre-installed. It seems Acer does/did in SA? Any suggestions?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top
Sign up to the MyBroadband newsletter
X