Saturday, October 31, 2009


Netbook and UNR


The netbook business is an odd one, really. As a product category, it’s easy enough to describe: take a notebook computer, and start taking things out until you end up with something really small and really cheap. Optical drive? As long as you assume the consumer already has a full desktop or laptop somewhere with a CD/DVD drive, you don’t need one. Full sized keyboard? Too big, give them something smaller. Top of the line CPU? Don’t need it for basic web surfing and light editing. Tons of storage? This is an appliance, you don’t need it to hold all of the user’s media.

As a business, though, it turns out it’s pretty dicey. It’s just not possible to make much money on a $300 computer, no matter who you are. Some companies have done the math and decided that it doesn’t make sense for them to be in the business. To be honest, though, the business model doesn’t matter much to me — that’s up to computer companies to figure out, not me.

I bought Tammie a little Acer Aspire for her birthday last year. Of course, I probably use it more than she does. It arrived with Windows XP installed, and I’m pretty sure I had the hard drive reformatted within a half hour of unboxing. Yeah, I’m one of them.

I installed Ubuntu Netbook Remix, and it was OK. The machine was OK for running Firefox, but I had recurring issues: sometimes, the WiFi would just stop working for no reason, for example.

I’m happy to say the new Karmic Koala release of Ubuntu drastically improves the overall feel of the machine. Everything feels a little snappier, it connects to the household wireless with much less hassle, and after I copied a few fonts from one of my Macs things even look pretty good in the browser. I installed an early access release of Chrome and the performance is very usable on all the sites I visit regularly, even Javascript-heavy sites like Google Wave.

Overall, though, the netbook is still a toy; something to check the IMDb or Wikipedia on while sitting on the couch. It’s a nicer toy than it was last week, though.


:: Dave Walker 14:46 (EST/EDT) [+] ::

:: [/tech/computers/os/linux]
:: tags:

:: Comments (5)

Comments:

ssp wrote:

Title:

Date: 10/31/2009 15:36:30

Response:

I have to admit I fail to understand the appeal of netbooks. I see many people running around with them in our department, so they must be popular. I don’t think I could use them as they probably fail to do pretty much everything I’d be interested in. All that while being significantly less pocketable than my iPod touch – which I bought with tasks like IMDB and Wikipedia surfing in mind. Tasks which it handles reasonably well.

(Still nice to hear that the Linux became more tolerable, though.)

d.w. wrote:

Title:

Date: 10/31/2009 15:48:38

Response:
As I suggested, I don’t take it out much, actually. Occasionally, I’ll carry it to the coffee shop. It weighs about half what my MacBook does. Right now I’m sitting in an easy chair, and it’s just about right for answering a blog comment. :) It’s really unsuited for long typing. Like I said, it’s a toy.
George Hotelling wrote:

Title:

Date: 11/1/2009 09:06:38

Response:
My coworker swears by Crunchbang for netbooks, and is waiting for a released based on Karmic. My other coworker swears by Snow Leopard on his HP Mini - he points out that the license says it can only go on Apple branded computers, so he put an Apple sticker over the Dell logo.
d.w. wrote:

Title:

Date: 11/1/2009 09:18:37

Response:

I thought about going the Hackintosh route, but decided what I like about Macs is not having to regularly perform the sort of unnatural configuration contortions required to keep one going -- dodging system updates, dicking around in the firmware, etc.

Ubuntu is as close to fire-and-forget as Linux gets, and I guess I appreciate that at this state of my impending cranky-old-manhood.

d.w. wrote:

Title:

Date: 11/2/2009 15:45:57

Response:
Apropos of the last comment: Mac OS X 10.6.2 rumored to block Atom support, foil netbook OS X booting.



Too ripped. Gotta go.