Linux Friendly Netbook?

[geoffrey mendelson]

On May 3, 2009, at 7:47 AM, Amichai Rotman wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> I am writing to both lists because I think the problem of bouncing
> mails on the Linux-IL list still persists - at least for me...
>
> I want to buy a Linux friendly netbbok, preferably Ubuntu 8.04  
> friendly.
>
> My requirements:
>
> Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, comfortable keyboard.
>
> I'll use it mainly for on the go Media Player and some basic browsing.
>
> I want the Bluetooth support to be able to connect my stereo Bluetooth
> headset and transfer files via OBEX to my Nokia E71 smart phone.


I have an MSI Wind U100. They cost around 2300 NIS with the 6 cell  
battery (don't get the 3),
2g RAM and a 160G hard drive. Wifi, bluetooth, etc are included. It  
has 3 USB ports, but note that it does NOT have an RS232 or Parallel  
port, so if you need to interface that something that needs it, you  
are out of luck. Many of those devices don't work with USB convertors,  
but they are now rare enough that most people won't even know what I  
am talking about.

I run BSD on mine, but it does sort of run Ubuntu. I had an 8.10.2  
memory key set up for it and
it did everything except Wifi. (I did not test the camera). The Wifi  
driver was released a few weeks before 8.10 was, so it was not  
included. A hard disk installation would not have that problem, you  
can add the wifi drivers in a minute with an ethernet connection.

When 9.0.4 came out, I downloaded and booted from the live disk. It  
worked fine with Wifi, but the build a bootable USB memory key program  
works, but the memory key is unusable due to a kernel bug.

I also installed it on a desktop and after the first update, my  
ethernet stopped working (the file that defined the interface suddenly  
no longer had it in it).

I tired to run 8.0.4 LTS on a server and found that so many things  
never worked that I needed, I was unable to use it. It now happily  
runs 8.10, but there were bugs that had strange work arounds that I  
had to research to get them to work.

IMHO if you are  using Ubuntu as a replacement for Windows it's a good  
choice, but if you do anything out of the ordinary, you can see it  
suffers from the same disease Red Hat Linux suffered from 10 years  
ago. (get it out the door, worry about the bugs later)

Geoff.

-- 
geoffrey mendelson N3OWJ/4X1GM
Jerusalem Israel geoffreymendelson at gmail.com