Linux Netbooks: EEE and Dell Mini 9 After a Few Months

It’s been a while since we ordered netbooks for work and I wanted to provide an update.

We started with a pair of EEE-PC’s.  They are the Asus 1000’s, with the ten inch screen.  They arrived with the stock Xandros linux; one was replaced with the EEE-Ubuntu distro.  Both netbooks went into a pool of laptops that are lent for the use of employees at home or during travel.

One of the major complaints with the laptops is weight.  We have a lot of complaints about weight.  We have a lot of complaints about everything, but weight is one thing we could do something about. As soon as the netbooks were ready, I started taking them out and showing them off.  The reaction was overwhelmingly positive.

The weight seemed to be the primary issue so a few of the people who came for laptops were definitely in favor of trying out a netbook.  Then they’d show them to their coworkers, all of whom were jealous and wanted one too.

When the loaners came back, the reviews were 99.9% positive.*  People loved the light weight, the portability, and even the size.  I was shocked to discover that the diminished screen size and bizarro resolution (1024×600 or so) didn’t bother anybody.  Quite honestly it bothered the hell out of me but since the netbooks were not for me, it wasn’t a concern.

Also of no consequence was the reduced keyboard size.   All of the reviews stated that if you touch-type, this is not the laptop for you.  I’m not entirely sure what you’d call my style of typing (hunt and scream? bang and backspace?) but when I tried it out, it definitely slowed me down a bit. Essentially if you never look at the keyboard when you type, you will go through a period of adjustment.

DIFFERENCES

There aren’t any significant differences between the Dell Mini Inspiron 9 and the Asus 1000, except for the keyboard.   Dell decided to leave off the F-keys for some reason, perhaps to give the other keys more room or to allow for a smaller overall unit (oh yeah, the display is 8.9″ – the Asus is 10″).  Unfortunately I found the Dell keyboard unusable.  I’m not completely certain but I believe my issue is with the odd size and positioning of the keys.  The letter keys are all where they should be but the surrounding keys are very narrow, causing me to miss them a lot more than with the Asus.

Both netbooks have the same processor and amount of RAM.  The Dell was ordered with a 16G solid state hard drive (the largest available at the time); the Asus with a 40G drive.  Interestingly enough, the Asus has two drives, a 32G and a faster 8G drive.

When our resident netbook expert-to-be installed EEE-Ubuntu, he installed the OS on the 8G drive so it would be faster, using the larger drive for user documents.  Per all the advice we received, there is no swap partition.  The reason for this is that the solid state drives, like those in USB sticks, are good for a finite number of writes.  Read that again: after a certain amount of writes, the drive will `break.’  Therefore no swap.  I have heard nothing about a flash drive actually breaking but we all need to be prepared for when it eventually happens (back up that information, people!).

There seems to be no preference from our clientele for one brand over the other.  When the owner wanted me to replace his old beater of a laptop which he uses largely as a notepad, I suggested one of the netbooks.  He was on-board and loves the thing.

WHAT ABOUT WINDOWS?

We also ordered an EEE 1000H to see how well it ran XP, in case people didn’t get along well with Xandros.  It had the same processor and RAM, but an 80G mechanical hard drive.  I was impressed at how well XP ran – I was expecting it to completely crawl but it didn’t.  I didn’t have time to open any applications but once it booted up (it took a while), XP ran fine.  I suspect that it’s a much better idea to use mechanical hard drives for Windows because of the aforementioned issue with finite solid state drive life.

Our EEE-expert recently asked if he could wipe XP and put Ubuntu on it, as there have been no issues.  If there were any issues, the answer would have been no, but I had no hesitation in telling him to go for it.  The Asus Xandros will also be replaced by Ubuntu because it’s easier to manage multiple profiles.

WHAT CAN THEY DO?

Good question.  So far they can do everything our people need from a loaner laptop.  We do not have what you’d refer to as Power Users; in fact sometimes we hesitate to call them Light Users, so keep this in mind.  These netbooks have wireless which connects to the service wherever they are.  They can surf, they can email, they can word process and they can do spreadsheets (we defaulted them to save to Office format so they’re compatible).  I know there’s a presentation program but don’t know if anyone has tried it with a Powerpoint presentation yet.  I’d imagine it would be difficult due to the screen resolution but one uses what one has.

Nobody has been bothered by the lack of optical drives either.  Everything is imported from or exported to USB drives.  No problem.

WOULD YOU RECOMMEND ONE?

If you understand what a netbook is and what it isn’t, I would recommend it.  When you can purchase a tiny, portable netbook for less than half of what you spend on an average laptop, I think it’s a pretty good deal.  I won’t purchase more Dells because of the keyboard (and the two month wait I experienced – your mileage may vary) but it performs every bit as well as the Asus.

Would I purchase one for home?  Not on your life.  It’s not that there’s anything wrong with them; I just don’t like the size of the keyboard and screen.

I would stay away from the smaller netbooks, both personally and professionally.  The one Target is currently selling is an Asus but I don’t know which model.  It’s so small as to be unusable.  I heard that Asus will be discontinuing the smaller netbooks and sticking with 10″ screens, which would be a smart idea, in my opinion.  The processor might be slower also, along with the hard drive.  The keyboard is also smaller, nuking the deal completely for me.

Regardless of which, remember to check which operating system is available.  If you absolutely must have Windows, make sure it comes with XP.  There are a few that come with Vista, which you should avoid like the plague.  Vista does not run well on regular pc’s, no less the Atom processors in netbooks.  If it only comes with linux, don’t worry – you won’t be disappointed and you won’t have to worry about not being able to use it.  If my clientele can use it, anybody can.

If you prefer to sit back and wait a while, maybe the next generation of netbooks will have the dual core Atom processors.  More power is always better.

SO WHAT’S UP WITH LINUX?

If people want to return their netbook because of linux, there’s something wrong with them.  Unless we’re talking about a specific application, there’s no reason to send them back.  They are so simple to work that virtually anyone can use one.  To this day there hasn’t been one inquiry into which OS this is or one complaint about the ease of use.  They borrow them, return them, then request them next time.

The prices are falling too.  I checked yesterday on Newegg.com and the EEE 1000 with linux was on sale for $459 in white and $499 in black.   If you can tolerate a smaller screen, the 900’s are even less expensive.

*The only complaint was that the spellcheck didn’t work in the word processor, which was an Asus issue that got fixed quickly.