[lug] OT: netbook opinions?

[Sean Reifschneider]

Nick Golder wrote:
> On 2009-01-04 14:58 -0700, Jeff Schroeder wrote:
>> hardcover book, very sleek, and completely silent.  The keyboard is 
>> pretty tight-- as with all netbooks-- but from reviews I've read, it's 
>> bigger than the Acer keyboards.

The Acer Aspire One says it has a 95% size keyboard, so if the Dell is
bigger than that there's not much room before you get to 100%.  :-)  ISTR
that the Acer keyboard I tried was fairly large, I don't recall it feeling
cramped.  The HP also had a nice keyboard.

You may be thinking the Eee 900 series which I think definitely does have a
cramped keyboard.  But...

> it is a netbook, is how cramped the keyboard is and how you can count on
> not ever touch typing - most regress to hunt and peck.

I wouldn't agree with that.  I can basically touch type on the Eee 901 I
just recently got without TOO much trouble.  And I've not used it that
much.  It took a while of feeling uncomfortable, but last night when I was
typing up notes on it I really had no problems.

The biggest issue on that keyboard is that the number and function keys are
shifted a bit.  It goes Esc, ~, F1 ..., so where I'm used to F1 being the
left-most on that row it's actually the third.  The inverse is true for the
numbers, I expect `, 1, but instead 1 is the left-most...

Oh, and Fn and Ctl are reversed from my thinkpad, so I *ALWAYS* want to
press Fn for Ctl...  Haven't gotten used to that one.

Oh, and I just can't stand the touchpad, but with the keyboard being so
small I'm kind of grateful that it doesn't have a trackpoint.

> I have seen a couple of people that have largely moved to netbooks as
> their primary machines.  Some are even developing on them with the idea

My primary goals with the netbook are:

   Shedding several pounds of things I carry while on vacation.

   A machine I can carry on vacation that isn't so costly if I lose it.

   Having the ability to do e-mail, IRC, and my SSH keys with me without
   carrying my big, beautiful Thinkpad T61.

So I ended up getting the Eee 901 with Linux.  The primary reasons are:

   $375-ish.

   6+ hours of battery life.

   2.5 pounds.

One thing to note is that unlike the Thinkpad, getting accessories for it
isn't that easy.  My searches for a battery seem to only come up with
aftermarkets, which I've had very bad luck with on the Thinkpad side.  An
extra charger?  Airplane charger?  Probably will have to go generic.

Lenovo has spoiled me, getting accessories from Lenovo directly has been
great.

Note that the Eee really doesn't save any weight over Evelyn's Thinkpad
X300.  Of course, she only has the smaller included battery (I think she's
only got 3 cells total).  And she's got a way bigger drive.  You can load
the Thinkpad up with up to 9 cells to get similar life to the Eee.

I would totally have gotten an X300 instead of the Eee for a very small
laptop, but it doesn't solve my "Not so worried about cost if I lose it".
The Eee is practically disposable...

> At CES there were several companies that announced new lines of new
> netbooks - most of them included larger SSDs.

Some of the netbooks have regular laptop hard drives in them.  I wanted SSD
for ruggedness.  The Eee I got has 2 SSDs, a 4GB and a 16GB.  These are not
laptop formfactor, but apparently you can get different drives to upgrade
them, it's a standard formfactor it's just not the typical 1.8/2.5" that
laptops usually take.  It's more like (but not exactly) a Mini-PCI.  I
forget the name of the interface.

I put Intrepid on the 4GB, with about 1GB free after installing most of
the bare minimums I need.  I then set up the 16GB as /home.

I also have a USB traditional HD for mass storage, 250GB.

Oh, and the included Linux?  I got the Linux version mostly to support the
Linux option.  I used it for like a millisecond before re-installing.  I
knew I'd re-install because I wanted to encrypt the file-systems.  The
included Linuxy thing is cute, but for me I wouldn't even think about
keeping it.  But, then again, I wouldn't even think about running a
non-encrypted system.

Sean
-- 
Sean Reifschneider, Member of Technical Staff <jafo at tummy.com>
tummy.com, ltd. - Linux Consulting since 1995: Ask me about High Availability

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