My eeepc experience

[NoClue!]

I myself am in the market for one these little stinkin things. Haven't decided which one yet. The funny thing is I absolutely hate laptops, as far as I'm concerned you could pile all of them into a recycle crusher. I've repaired them for people, new ones, old ones doesn't matter, their heavy, clumsy, slow, hot, fragile, noisy, cantankerous bastardizations of technology. Fortunately I never had the NEED to own one. Now I strangely find myself drawn to these "netbooks" like a fly to a bugzapper. I HAVE TO HAVE ONE. It's like this is what a laptop should have been.

Let us know what differences you notice going from hdd to ssd.

[AK Dave]

I am a big fan, and user, of the Dell Mini-9. I can't recommend the Dell Mini-12 at all, because the Intel GMA 500 chipset is not yet well supported for linux, but the Mini-9 is freakishly awesome and is a tinkerer's wet dream: the ram, SSD, and battery are all upgradable with 3rd-party parts.

Drop $249 @ Dell and get a base model Mini-9 loaded with Ubuntu 8.04. Drop $25.99 @ Crucial for 2gb of ram. The newer lpia kernel now addresses 2gb ram (the older one limited you to 1gb but the hardware allows 2gb). Several vendors offer SSD drives up to 64gb, including Dell. The bump from 4gb to 64gb is +150 from Dell, or closer to $220 from other vendors. A mere $65 on eBay gets you an 8-cell battery for your Mini to supplement the stock 4-cell battery's 4hr charge. Don't want Dell-buntu? Don't use it. Ubuntu 8.10 runs great, as does Mint6, although you may have to do some work to get hibernate to work without using a Dell lpia kernel. My advice: compile your own.

So depending on your actual needs, you can get away with as little as $249 for a top quality netbook that is best suited to running XFCE, or for a wee $30 (incl shipping) more you have a top quality netbook that will run KDE4.2+Compiz with nary a hiccup. All on as little as 4gb of SSD, if you're budget-conscious, or with as much as 64gb of SSD for the more extravagant.

Sidenote: the bigger (and faster) SSDs draw more power than the smaller (and not as fast) SSDs. Obviously speed makes a difference, but size may also be a factor. My Minis have 16gb SSDs stock from Dell and routinely log 4hr+ of actual uptime between charges.

[kwisher]

Asus just released this new one that I want, too bad it comes with Win-Xp.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2340593,00.asp

[NoClue!]

Thanks for the input on the mini 9. I'm pulling it off my list due to the extremely irritating adamo promo on there site. I am now dumber for having clicked on it.

How about mobile broadband adapters, do they work with linux? I'm considering one of these services also.

What is the advantage of sdd vs hdd? Real world value, not hype. They definitely don't hold much.

[AK Dave]

I don't know whats up with that Adamo promo, but if you're refusing to consider the Mini-9 on account of whateverthecrap Adamo is then I think you're missing out.

SDD vs HDD:

SSD is lighter, draws less power, has fewer moving parts, and depending on what you're doing may be faster in some uses than a HDD. Bunchaweaselspeak, I know, but tests seem to clock them faster, but just like anything some drives spec faster.

HDD are cheaper and they're traditional technology. They have moving parts, draw more power, typically clock faster, and because they use a spinning disc they're potentially more prone to physical damage from dropping or sudden power loss. But realistically, you throw your netbook at the concrete and its not going to survive regardless of what sort of drive it has.

[Yownanymous]

I like the Dell Mini 9. It's my main computer (shock, horror) but, as has been said, it's really good to tinker with, both software and hardware wise, and I really dislike the eee pc. It's really not the best of netbooks. It's square and blocky and in general horrible.

[AK Dave]

I think the Dell Mini-9 approaches perfection once you swap out the stock US keyboard for the US-INTL keyboard. Minor rearrangement of the keys gives you back your brackets and your tilde, plus puts quotes and comma back where they belong. Hard to beat at $249. The x86 kernels, as well as the current Dell-buntu lpia kernel, support 2gb of ram and Crucial will hook you up with that pretty cheap. Even the 4gb internal SSD is sufficient for any linux you would reasonably want to throw at it, but thats upgradable and they're coming down in price. Crucial has a 32gb SSD for <$100, unfortunately backordered. As is Dell's US-INTL keyboard.

I'll be ordering another Dell Mini just as soon as they get the US-INTL keyboard back in stock, and insisting that they build a Mini for me specifically with that keyboard.

[NoClue!]

Ok, did a little research and the mini 9 is back on the list. Good reviews, even though the keyboard is a little hoakey. I've discovered that you have to get your hands on one these little things before you purchase. Tried out the Asus 8.9, keyboard too small and of coarse, best buy has the darn thing for only $200. The Hp has a nice feel to it and the Acer Aspire One also. Not a big selection at best buy. I was hoping they had a mini 9 on hand but no luck.

Whats the word on mobile broadband adapters and netbooks with linux ............anyone?

[kwisher]

Ok, did a little research and the mini 9 is back on the list. Good reviews, even though the keyboard is a little hoakey. I've discovered that you have to get your hands on one these little things before you purchase. Tried out the Asus 8.9, keyboard too small and of coarse, best buy has the darn thing for only $200. The Hp has a nice feel to it and the Acer Aspire One also. Not a big selection at best buy. I was hoping they had a mini 9 on hand but no luck.

Whats the word on mobile broadband adapters and netbooks with linux ............anyone?

I can't comment on netbooks specifically but I was able to setup a Verizon broadband wireless adapter on my brothers Mint-6 desktop without any problems. I followed the directions here:

http://www.jasons.org/2008/09/12/using- ... ntu-hardy/

These directions are for Mint-5/Hardy. The new network manager in Mint-6/Intrepid does not require steps 1 thru 6. Start at step 7 and it will work.

[NoClue!]

Kwisher, thank you! Now I know I can buy without xp and I don't have to have a googleathon to make it work.

30% less efficient with linux? Is this typical ? Why woud linux be less efficient than xp? You still have to factor in more up time for virus and malware scans.

I still don't have one yet. Now my wife is swinging from my nutz over it. "Why do you need one of those things?" Haahahaa! She thinks I'm going to crawl into a corner like a troll logged into marriedandflirting.com. Too funny.

[AK Dave]

Just dropped in an order for another Mini-9, this time I talked to a bright fellow on the phone who was able to help me with my one special request: substitute keyboard "U061H" for the stock keyboard.

That happens to be the inventory code in Dell's database for the US-INTL keyboard for the Mini-9. This is the keyboard which ships stock on the UK Dell Vostro A90. Check euro.dell.com for pics of that computer, not available in the US. But the parts are here, in the US.

Vostro A90 is a rebranded Mini-9 with a US-INTL keyboard and an all-black bezel.

[AK Dave]

Tried out the Asus 8.9, keyboard too small and of coarse, best buy has the darn thing for only $200. The Hp has a nice feel to it and the Acer Aspire One also. Not a big selection at best buy. I was hoping they had a mini 9 on hand but no luck.

You might have to find a friend with a Mini-9 to try it out. They only seem to be available direct from Dell.

The consumer-grade HP netbooks are garbage. My local Costco got some in. Their floor model was demolished within days. Turns out the HP doesn't have any sort of internal chassis to it. Want to see how flimsy it is? Pick one up, open it, and give the keyboard/motherboard side of it a gentle twist. The HP warps dramatically. Blame it on the floor model? Yeah, sometimes the "floor model" isn't a real computer. But in this case it was. The HP looks nice, has a nice screen, but the keyboard is mush and the 10" screen isn't worth (in my opinion) the extra weight and decreased battery performance.

The Acer Aspire One has excellent battery performance and should be a contender on anyone's list, but with Dell slashing the pricing on the Mini-9 (they had them yesterday on a Presidents Day Sale for under $200, free shipping) its hard for anything else to compare. Acer is rolling out an 10" model, but I don't see their 9" models coming down in price (yet) to match Dell.

My opinion is you need to decide what your priority list included, and in what order. Does the difference between $200, $400, and $600 really matter to you? What constitutes "maximal performance"? What features do you value over others? That ought to help narrow your list down better.

[Katzedecimal]

I have an Acer Aspire One, one of the 8 GB ssd Linpus models. The local computer shop had it on sale for under 300$ CDN, so I snapped it up I love this thing! Unlike most consumers, I actually wanted exactly what it was, just a little appliance to get on the net, do some browsing and messaging when I'm on the road, write my stories and entertain myself while waiting at the doctor's office A full laptop is overkill for what I wanted, but this little netbook is perfect Best of all, I've been having a lot of fun playing with distros, trying to get them to work on it, hacking the Linpus and generally just having a grand old time with this 200$ toy

[kwisher]

Speaking of the Aspire One, they released a new model. See the link below.

http://www.maximumpc.com/article/news/a ... ttery_life

[AK Dave]

ndiswrapper definately plays "dirty pool" when it comes to power usage. If you're using ndiswrapper, you can expect to get sub-par battery performance.

This is yet another reason why I put the Dell Mini-9 at the top of my Linux Netbook list.

[NoClue!]

I finally bought one, an acer aspire, the new 10" model with xp, 160gb and 1gb ram. I bought with xp hoping to tether my new samsung instinct phone for internet access. Turns out the instinct can't use phone as a modem software, google and a bunch of hacks to make it work, i'm pissed.

The acer is very cool so far. I'm looking forward to getting linux on it. It came with a 5800mhr battery, last for 7 hrs.

Is the atheros 5007eg a problem with linux?

[AK Dave]

I got power usage down to mid 7's by adding adam's repo, installing his kernel, and installing eee-control.

Dell Mini-9, Ubuntu Hardy 8.04.2-lpia, bluetooth off, wifi on, playing a movie, backlight 50%, volume 75%, typing this post.

Powertop says 8.1W, range over the last 30min has been 7.5-9.2W.

[kwisher]

Received my new eepc 1000HE today and loaded Mint-6. So far everything seems to be working great. All the hardware is working (networking, wired & wireless, webcam). Haven't confirmed everything yet but Mint-6 is just beautiful on this small device, as it is on any machine I install it on.

[AK Dave]

thats amazing, my atom cpu practically uses that much power when playing a movie. is that an underclocked celeron 900?

Thats a 1.6ghz Atom N270 in a Dell Mini-9. Those numbers came with use of the lpia compiled low-power kernel in Ubuntu Hardy. Similar activity with the stock i386 kernel in Ubuntu Jaunty show slightly higher numbers, but keep in mind that aircraft-manager doesn't work in Jaunty so I don't have control over completely disabling the bluetooth or wifi radios. Slightly higher = 8.5-10.5 range, rather than the 7.2-9.2 range enjoyed before.