Netbook

S

SamF

Nori Brick
Tackler
Acer Aspire One cheap at Asda for £150 down from £219. Best value for money netbook around at that price. Can upgrade RAM to 1.5GB for £8.50 although it requires almost completely dismantling the laptop so not for the faint-hearted.

Bought mine last night.
 
How are you finding the operating system?

I recently bought a Samsung NC10 which is a 10.2" netbook, same processor as the AA1 but with 1GB RAM Windows XP Home and a 160GB hard drive. It has an awesome battery and will give you 5 hours, if not more.
 
Keyboard is great too except the backslash key is in the wrong place but I am getting used to it. Screen is very bright as well. I often have it turned below half and find it easy to see still.
 
Richard has one of those netbooks like yours Samf, can you actually buy them to run windows or are they only on Linux?


i ask because Reece wants one for christmas and these dongles wont run with linux
 
heh there are different makes and models even on 3. When you plug it in to windows in device manager does it say a make and model? If you like i can pop round on friday with my laptop and we can test it under Linux.

Any info you give me ahead will help me research if i need to download a driver etc.

Even sop much as what colour iit is can help


Posted via Mobile Device
 
You can install windows on them Shaz yes. It might be simpler for you both if it had Windows on if you have never used Linux before.

In fact a lot of people have been returning Linux based netbooks to places like PCWorld and carphonewarehouse because they found Linux to be not quite so Windows like as the sales people said.

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobil...own-to-linux-netbooks-484642?src=rss&attr=all
http://www.liliputing.com/2008/10/msi-canonical-linux-based-netbooks-returned-more-often.html

I think they have a small cut down version on as well but Ian will tell you better than I could.
 
Richard has Linux on his acer aspire one, i've never really bothered trying to navigate around it, only ever used it to surf the net and to come on here
 
Posted via Mobile Device

If its the e220 its supported out the box. You may just need to configure the dial up tool at worst.

if you really want to test it i will call round. Tbh if oits for next xmas i would wait as the new intel atom cpu will be out and about a lot more and there are some cracking machines lined up for release.
 
ok i'll do that then, i need to get this job before i can even dream about getting us both a new laptop
 
The operating system is basically a modified version of fedora with xfce WM - It works fine for normal users but Opening the terminal seems slow for some reason - same with text editor so currently in the process of configuring fluxbox :)
 
have you tried actualy putting something like Ubuntu on it? I've just shoved it on a HP Mini Note ( 2133) and it runs lovely with Gnome. Its only got a VIA VGA chip in it so no fancy 3D but for what these things are aimed at its spot on.

It also even runs the propriety Broadcom Wifi card using teh recently released STA drivers.

I was actually really impressed with it as a nice small footprint piece of kit.
 
entwisi said:
have you tried actualy putting something like Ubuntu on it? I've just shoved it on a HP Mini Note ( 2133) and it runs lovely with Gnome. Its only got a VIA VGA chip in it so no fancy 3D but for what these things are aimed at its spot on.

It also even runs the propriety Broadcom Wifi card using teh recently released STA drivers.

I was actually really impressed with it as a nice small footprint piece of kit.
Click to expand...

I have considered it - lookied at the ubuntu documentation for it and found this to be the current situation:

Code: 
[B]Fully functional:[/B]

 
[LIST]
[*]Suspend / Resume            [ works out of box ]
[*]Video (with desktop effects)[ works out of box ]
[*]Wireless Networking         [ ath_pci loads by default instead of ath5k, but the fix is easy (see below)]
[*]wifi power saving           [ works out of box ]
[*]Wired Networking            [ works out of box ]
[*]Webcam                      [ works out of box ]
[*]USB                         [ works out of box ]
[*]Silent Fan                  [ fan works, silent?? needs scripts ]
[*]Audio [ semi-working (output only), internal mic DOES NOT WORK on 2.6.27 *; audio output over speakers broken since kernel 2.6.27.7 ]
[*]Card Reader power saving    [ not tested ]
[/LIST]
 
[B]Partial Function:[/B]

 
[LIST]
[*]wifi kill switch            [ working, but no notification ]
[*]Card Readers, Bios 3109     [ Work out of the box, but write errors after suspend and on SDHC cards]
[*]Card Readers, Bios 3305     [ Pre 2.6.27.7: Only right card reader works after setpci described above; no SDHC support]
[*]Card Readers, Bios 3305 [ 2.6.27.7: Both card readers work again after setpci described above; no SDHC support, but at least the insertion of cards is automatically detected.]
[/LIST]
 
[B]Not Functional:[/B]

 
[LIST]
[*]Hibernate on A110L [ Seems to work for for some if there is a swap partition that is big enough so we can suspend to it. Test carefully before using!. ]
[/LIST]
 
[B]Wireless module[/B]

 There has been some confusion as to which wireless driver provides the best performance and reliability. I have found the following: 
 

[LIST]
[*]madwifi from kernel (ath_pci) - does not attach to hardware.
[*]ath5k from intrepid backports (ath5k) - connects to hardware, but experiences disconnects on medium to heavy wireless activity, and can not communicate with some AP's using WPA2 PSK.
[*]madwifi-hal from [URL="http://snapshots.madwifi-project.org/"]snapshots.madwifi.org[/URL] (ath_pci) - Everything works.
[/LIST]

Since I am a fan of fluxbox anyway I am happy running this tweaked version of linpus for now - might change when Ubuntu is fully compatible :)
 
I've used madwifi a number of times so its fully functional or certainly as much as your linpus will be if not more. (i've read soem rather iffy articles about it but hey, I've not used it personally so can't say for sure).


You can always dual boot it you know :D
 
entwisi said:
You can always dual boot it you know :D
Click to expand...

Thats probably the best idea and what I do with mine

Ubuntu and XP ;)

The XP gets used most of the time because the trackpad is rubbish in Ubuntu. It does work though, well most of it. It has the same mic issues mentioned for the AA1 and the function keys are iffy, Screen brightness is poor and changes by itself - sort of.

Its a shame because my initial intention was to use it mainly on Ubuntu and only use XP when I had too.
 
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