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Buying a 300$ netbook and dual-booting with ubuntu
Korlash
QuébécoisTorontoRegistered User regular
QuébécoisTorontoRegistered User regular
Dear Internets,
I've been looking for a good netbook to buy around the price of 300$ or less. I wanted to know if you anyone has any particular suggestions as to what is good/what to avoid at that price.
The acer aspire one seems like a good choice from what I read, except acer has this reputation of making really cheap, crappy computers that break easily (from what I hear). Is the aspire one reliable? Has anyone tried putting ubuntu on it?
I need that netbook mainly for doing a bit of work away from home. So checking emails and browing the web, but also working on powerpoint presentations before conferences, reading articles and sending instructions to computer clusters. I would be dual-booting with Windows 7 and ubuntu, so that I would have access to windows if a program needs it, but I will spend most of my time on the ubuntu side.
Oh, and I will be using a tablet (maybe something like this: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10841&cs_id=1084101&p_id=6251&seq=1&format=2) with my netbook to take notes in class. If anyone has any recommendations on the tablet or a program to take notes, it would be nice. (In particular, if anyone could tell me about how long the pen lasts on a single battery for that monoprice tablet, if you've used it)
For people who have experience with netbooks, are they so weak that they are sluggish when doing simple things like working on a powerpoint presentation? Is a netbook ok for what I want to do? I already have a powerful desktop computer, so I don't really want to buy an expensive laptop. Plus, a netbook is lighter and easier to carry, so it would be great if I could get that.
I've been looking for a good netbook to buy around the price of 300$ or less. I wanted to know if you anyone has any particular suggestions as to what is good/what to avoid at that price.
The acer aspire one seems like a good choice from what I read, except acer has this reputation of making really cheap, crappy computers that break easily (from what I hear). Is the aspire one reliable? Has anyone tried putting ubuntu on it?
I need that netbook mainly for doing a bit of work away from home. So checking emails and browing the web, but also working on powerpoint presentations before conferences, reading articles and sending instructions to computer clusters. I would be dual-booting with Windows 7 and ubuntu, so that I would have access to windows if a program needs it, but I will spend most of my time on the ubuntu side.
Oh, and I will be using a tablet (maybe something like this: http://www.monoprice.com/products/product.asp?c_id=108&cp_id=10841&cs_id=1084101&p_id=6251&seq=1&format=2) with my netbook to take notes in class. If anyone has any recommendations on the tablet or a program to take notes, it would be nice. (In particular, if anyone could tell me about how long the pen lasts on a single battery for that monoprice tablet, if you've used it)
For people who have experience with netbooks, are they so weak that they are sluggish when doing simple things like working on a powerpoint presentation? Is a netbook ok for what I want to do? I already have a powerful desktop computer, so I don't really want to buy an expensive laptop. Plus, a netbook is lighter and easier to carry, so it would be great if I could get that.
Korlash on
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I love my Asus and think they make a great product. At that price point you are going to be getting Windows 7 Starter, really no way around it. I think battery life in a portable is far and away the most important thing imaginable (now that the benchmark for hardware performance is pretty solid across the board). I can pretty much narrow it down to 3 options for you, one under 300 and two at 350
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220857
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220853
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220850
I don't like how large the first one is, 10" is noticeably more portable. I have a 9" screen and don't see a portable need over 10" (unless you're doing photo editing on the go, I suppose). Also, plan on maxing out your RAM.
Yes, it works, I've tested it. So awesome.
UNIX didn't have good out of the box support for Broadcom drivers because they were proprietary. This is fixed by putting in an ethernet cable and installing them from package manager.
They're also getting better now that the drivers are open source.
Aside from that, hers has been reliable. I've had a Samsung N210 netbook for around the same time, and it's going well. Very, very comfortable keyboard and a pretty good trackpad, too (both in size and feel).
Generally, though, I'd recommend Asus. A couple of friends have Eee PCs, and they have a tendency to not die and be generally very reliable. I also work in a retail electronics store, and the two brands that get the best feedback, reliability- and hardware-wise, are Asus and Toshiba (who also do netbooks).
Plays with Ubuntu fine although my adventures into dual booting were disastrous, Win 7 threw a hissy fit and is refusing to boot or recover from the recovery partition. I think it takes a fair bit of coercing to get it it play nice on a dual boot.
Regarding this, WINE pretty much has your back in terms of Windows programs that don't have Linux variants, I'm using WINE to run the Windows version of Spotify and it's more stable than the Linux version.
Ubuntu 11, which was just released, now has a popup immediate after install that just says "hey, you want these drivers for wireless, even though they aren't open source, right?", which makes it a lot easier than it's been in the past.