[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]I got one for my gf and a couple of weeks later, my desktop died so I got one for myself. Hers Windows and His Linux. Cute huh?
Linux came with a simplified xandros but found a hack to run it in advanced desktop mode. It obviously has it’s limitations in keyboard and display, but at home I plug a full size keyboard and monitor in. Small HD supplemented with flash/external drives and Bob’s yer uncle.
I’m a linux convert now and can’t help preachin about it. Anyways, colleague has one running on windows and it’s a pain in the A. OS takes up the whole HD.[/quote]
I’m curious about you running Linux on a netbook. Why do you like it so much? What are the main benefits that you see besides the smaller space on the HD?
I’m thinking my next tech purchase will be some sort of netbook that I can hack to run a Mac OS on. Not really interested in Windows 7, but hope to dig deeper into some other tech projects that require a Linux distro. Since I’d be a newbie I assume Ubuntu is the way to go. Any tips, preacher man?
Linux is like communism. Nothing works but when you point this out all the other Linux users get very angry with you, denouncing you as a loser, a liar and an M$ $HILL!. Eventually you go back to Windows. Seriously an OEM windows license (cost to you: free with a laptop) is a small price to pay for not having to talk to those people.
cuz internet explorer wont work (thanks to microsoft) and any website that only works properly with I.Explorer wont be usable for you.
Seems thunderbird will take care of your outlook express needs, firefox for IE, and seems there are programs to take the place of word, excel and other office programs.
[quote=“KingZog”]Linux is like communism. Nothing works but when you point this out all the other Linux users get very angry with you, denouncing you as a loser, a liar and an M$ $HILL!. Eventually you go back to Windows. Seriously an OEM windows license (cost to you: free with a laptop) is a small price to pay for not having to talk to those people.[/quote] :roflmao:
[quote=“rocky raccoon”]
I’m thinking my next tech purchase will be some sort of netbook that I can hack to run a Mac OS on. Not really interested in Windows 7, but hope to dig deeper into some other tech projects that require a Linux distro. Since I’d be a newbie I assume Ubuntu is the way to go. Any tips, preacher man? [/quote]
I’m not a linux expert and only have experience with the xandros version but I’ve read a lot over the last six months and Ubuntu seems to be by far the most recommended distro for noobs.
I’ve enjoyed a stable system with no crashes, security problems, annoying update and security patch messages etc. the whole time. It boots fast and shuts down fast.
My main problem as a former Windows user is ‘windows thinking’ whenever I approach a problem. For example, when I first got it I looked around for an ftp program and cursing linux because I couldn’t find one. Then I found I can just type the ftp address in my file manager and treat my website like any folder on my hard-drive. Most peripherals, you can just plug in without searching for a driver - external dvd drive, cellphone, etc. The only exception was a printer for which I easily found and installed a driver. For programs that only work for windows you can install a program called Wine to run them.
As a long time open source user I’d already been using Firefox, Gimp instead of adobe/paintshop, frostwire for torrentz, etc. But if you have favorite programs that have windows versions you can use Wine.
As a preacher, my advice to you would be download and burn a distro and run it off a disk to try it out. There are distros that boot from disk or usb drive and you don’t have to get rid of your usual OS to run them.
It is the distro I would recommend to anyone, not just newbies.
I’m no newbie. I have written kernel code in the past and I can mess with the OS’s configuration at a pretty deep level, but I’m interested in getting work done rather than messing with the OS. Ubuntu is a stable no-nonsense distribution. I’ll let the foaming-at-the-mouth Gentoo lunatics babysit their OS. I’m not interested in babysitting.
It is great that you recognize that. A lot of people using Linux do not have this kind of self-awareness and just end up blaming the OS for not being a clone of Windows.
Warning: Wine is not easy to use. I recommend installing Windows in a virtual machine like Virtual Box.
[quote=“Charlie Phillips”]
As a preacher, my advice to you would be download and burn a distro and run it off a disk to try it out. There are distros that boot from disk or usb drive and you don’t have to get rid of your usual OS to run them.[/quote]
I don’t really have anything to add here, except that getting used to Linux is probably a heck of a lot easier on a proper desktop computer than a tiny netbook.
I was wondering that myself, so I checked out Ubuntu’s website. They say that it’s easy to load Ubuntu on desktops and servers, but that the “netbook remix” is tougher. I don’t know if that includes all forms of laptops, or only those tiny solid state drive ones like the one’s ASUS has. It is kinda amusing that the picture for the Desktop on the Ubuntu website is a laptop.
Anyone else have better gouge?
[quote=“Netbook Remix”]
To use the Ubuntu Netbook Remix you need to install packages on top of an existing Ubuntu installation and you may have some compatibility issues depending on your hardware profile. For now we recommend it only for experienced Linux users or commercial OEMs and ODMs engage with Canonical for support and service offerings. [/quote]
Before we go any further, I’ll point out there’s Eeebuntu which is made especially for netbooks. From what I understand, despite the name, it works on other netbooks besides the Eee PC.
There are two main challenges to get Linux working on a netbook:
Small screen size. I’ve heard reports that some software just does not behave well because it has fixed minimum window size which is bigger than the screen size.
New hardware. I bought a laptop in summer 2007. It was a brand new model with the latest hardware. It took about 6 months before full hardware support was available in the kernel and libraries and it was not until Ubuntu 8.04 that all the required support was incorporated in Ubuntu.
Another example of this is the Eee PC 1000HE. Asus is not shipping it with Linux but I’ve read rumors that when Ubuntu 9.04 is released (in April) Asus will offer it on the 1000HE. I am guessing that the reason there is no Linux option right now is that the support for the hardware in the 1000HE has not yet trickled down the development pipeline.
Because … well, let me make two things clear here first. It’s 4:30am on a Saturday night and I just got back and I am all kinds of drunk. That’s the first thing. The second is that I have never even owned a laptop, let alone a netbook, and so I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about.
But c’mon, they’re tiny, and they have specialized hardware, and minimal screen real estate and specs, and that isn’t what most people write software for. So even if your drivers work, which they probably will but not optimally, the majority of linux applications are going to be written for three times the computer you’re running them on. And that just isn’t any fun.
Learn your way around on a real desktop, is all I’m saying. Later, when you know the lay of the land, niche hardware will be easier to cope with.
Nice post B. I’m not totally drunk but I do feel my posting flow is much better w/ a couple of drinks in the system.
So getting back to the geek stuff. What about running VMWare on a netbook? Anyone ever tried it? Lemur?
I use VMWare at work to run OSX and XP on the same machine. Instead of hacking a netbook to run an OS that wasn’t made for the hardware, it seems it would be easier to use a virtual machine to take advantage of different OS. But I’m not sure if a netbook is powerful enough?
