Computing On the Go

[Tripitaka]

I don't get this whole Atom bashing thing. I was given a Toshiba NB100 (lucky me), It surfs the net fine, open office works fine for doing a bit of on-the-move word processing, it plays video smooth enough and I get to play the original fallout on the train (with the hi-res patch it runs at the correct resolution full screen). It does what it's meant to do and it does it well enough, and it's far easier to lug around then a full size notebook.
I guess it all depends on what your doing, if you fancy playing the latest games on the move your screwed of course but I don't do that. Not to forget of course that if your leaving a computer on all night to download a torrent, it uses less than 40W, bonus.

[CritAnime]

Didn't think I was bashing the atom, as such. Just pointed out that it's not the best option if your wanting to do some intensive things.

I just thought of another Linux Distro, Open Suse. I am pretty sure they have a special netbook optimised shell. I am also sure, unless they changed this at some point, that the security is all Novelle based. So should be rock sollid.

[tone007]

I would NEVER EVER get an ATOM based computer. ATOM sucks really hard!!!!

Sure they're no i7, but they handle day to day stuff very well.  The low power consumption (and low heat) are great.

[a1200]

I have a few Atom based solid state machines (one hosts amiga600.net) and find them great. I have an Acer AspireOne with the intention of running AROS on it when I get chance :-)

[TCMSLP]

If you like Ubuntu and are happy with Gnome - simply autohide the top and bottom bars, reduce size of all fonts by a couple of points and you have all the desktop space you cold need.  Simple!  

Edit: But if going with Ubuntu,  I'd stick to the previous version (10.10?) for now as the latest is a huge mess.

[koaftder]

The default theme in 11.04 really blows when using eclipse or other IDEs. The new style scroll bar is extremely irritating. It makes it very difficult to see what position you are in an editor pane and the "pop up" widget you have to grab to scroll doesn't always register properly. That stupid scrolly is one of the first things I remove. The default theme colors also make the scroll bar background a similar color to the part you grab on standard scroll bars, again making it difficult to find. I could list 100 things that are irritating but that's a matter of opinion and in any case, anything that's annoying or retarded can be disabled, configured or removed if one desires.

I think you'll find using eclipse on a netbook with it's tiny screen, gimped keyboard, minuscule trackpad and wimpy atom cpu to be a crappy and suboptimal experience. There are truckloads of full fledged mini laptops that would be way more suitable for such purposes that compete with netbooks on price. I'd look there first.

[ptek]

Netbooks are for poofs.  Get yourself a laptop with a full keyboard and an 18" screen and a backpack and then take it out on the bus while elbowing people in the head and face just to post "I just got on a bus" on Facebook.

That's what a real man would do.

Don't forget to take a car power adaper on a 50' cable and plug it into the bus driver's cigarette lighter socket and then trail in down the walkway so that 70 year old ladies trip over it and break a hip.

LOL. And may I add, do not use an IDE. Use a plain text editor

[ptek]

I think you'll find using eclipse on a netbook with it's tiny screen, gimped keyboard, minuscule trackpad and wimpy atom cpu to be a crappy and suboptimal experience. There are truckloads of full fledged mini laptops that would be way more suitable for such purposes that compete with netbooks on price. I'd look there first.

You might be right. I need something small both on size and weight. I will look first to mini laptops as long the price is similar.

[ptek]

The new Fedora has had a nice update. Gnome 3 looks nice on a small screen and seems to suit the size well in terms of use of the space. Gnome 3 seems rather user friendly and has some nice inbuilt features. It certainly feels nice for a newcomer to Linux. The only issue I had was with some of the drivers to do with the graphics card. Other than that it seemed nice.

Thanks for the hint on Gnome 3 and Fedora. So it runs well on your brother's netbook? Just for getting an idea of the specs involved, what is the machine?

[persia]

NEtbooks are really the flip phones of computing, there were cool some time ago but now they're a bit dated.

The best linux distro for those kind of devices is Bodhi.  It follows the Debian/Ubuntu lineage but uses a more lightweight windows manager.

[ptek]

Hello again,

Although at the end buying a mini-notebook was more appealing to me than a netbook I had trouble in finding any at a good price considering what I wanted to spend, so I took the risk and went for a cheaper netbook. I got a Asus Eee 1015PEM and I'm quite satisfied with it.

I should say that I only got relieved after installing Ubuntu on it. Windows 7 Starter is simply too much for the machine and it crawls miserably. Ubuntu feels about 5x-8x faster and surpriseling enough the major developing tools runs pretty fast (even Elipse!). For sure, it's even a lot more faster than running ubuntu on a virtual machine at my fast core duo 2.40Ghz Toshiba A10.

I guess it's a viable option for whom want something small sized and able to do more than surfing the web. The keyboard is pretty nice and the touch pad surface feels comfortable. My only complain is still the weight but then event the more expensive alternatives weights the same and only tablets are lighter.

It doen't run AROS, still :S

[TheGoose]

Yeah net books are over. Get a small laptop. Man I need to get one; I have giant heavy thing that is splitting in two and little hinge parts keep falling out. Stickers are holding it together.