Category Archives: Linux

My spouse’s notebook computer died a few weeks ago, about 1 year after the 1 year warranty expired. This was not very satisfying. I also had my notebook PC die this past year, so it is starting to look like notebooks are disposal devices. Funny, my desktop PCs just keep on going year after year without a problem. This probably has something to do with the abuse that notebooks get being carried around from place to place.

So if we are going to end up replacing these things every few years, I got interested in lowering the cost. There are a number of compact netbooks that typically run Linux on the Intel Atom and use a solid state drive (no spinning hard disk). We settled on the Acer Aspire One, which is $329 from Amazon (free shipping). This computer has a 1.6GHz Atom N270 Processor, 8GB solid state drive, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM, 802.11b/g, Ethernet, three USB 2.0, VGA output, 1.3 megapixel camera, SDHC and multi-format media readers. I popped an 8GB SDRAM card into the expansion slot and it now has 16 GB. It uses the Linux LinpusLite operating system. (Some netbook models are going with WindowsXP, but I think these minimalist machines are better off with the small footprint of Linux.) The only thing I wish it had was a good-old dialup modem for those rare times when you are stuck without a decent wireless connection. (I’d trade that for the VGA display output.)

It comes ready to run with Linux and the key applications already loaded. For web browsing (Firefox), email (Acer Email) and writing (OpenOffice), it is ready to go. I did decide to load Thunderbird for email (instead of the supplied Acer Email application). This machine is configured like an appliance with not much thought of how the user will add applications. However, a little fiddling around on the web and the use of my (cough) extensive (cough) knowledge of Unix commands got Thunderbird loaded.

So far, this computer has exceeded our expectations. It is really compact, has a great display and is easy to use. What it does, it does well. However, it is NOT a full-size, full-featured notebook computer. For the intended use of internet communications, email, web, basic document creation, it works great. I am hoping that the simple design, with no hard drive, with also last a little longer. Did I mention that this thing boots fast? Go, Linux.

I can’t get it out of my wife’s hands. Trust me, I’ve tried.

73, Bob K0NR

Followup Oct 11: I’ve noticed that the netbook product category continues to be dynamic with new products being introduced all of the time. Check out the latest offerings from Acer, Asus, Dell, Lenovo, MSI, etc. before making a purchase.

One of my old PCs sitting in the basement had Windows 98 on it. The computer was named Ernie by my daughter many years ago. (The taller computer we had at the time received the name Bert, as in Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street.) The OS seemed to be dieing a slow death as it experienced the blue screen of death on a regular basis. I suspected that the hardware was OK and the software was suffering from entropy. It seemed wrong to re-install Win98 in the year 2008, so I considered other alternatives.

For quite some time, I have been wanting to bring up a Linux machine. Why? Bragging rights, I suppose. Feed the inner geek. Real men run Linux, you know. (Masochists run Windows and wimps run Macs….just kidding.) I was also curious about how friendly and useful the OS would be. The Linux folklore also claims that it will run on anemic PCs without any problem. (I definitely didn’t want to install Vista on this old PC.) Back a few decades, I spent quite a bit of time on HP Unix computers and I used to be able to grep with the best of them. More recently our herd of computers have been running operating systems from Microsoft.

It seems that the Ubuntu release of Linux was getting positive reviews, so I chose it as the upgrade for Ernie. I downloaded the latest release and created an install CD. This first attempt to install linux failed, apparently because the PC only has about 200 Megs of memory. The download page said to use the “alternate” version of the release to deal with limited memory. I downloaded that version and the install progressed quite nicely.

During the install process, the software tried to find a network connection, which was unplugged at the time so it told me I could deal with that later. After the install, the system rebooted and ran just fine. The graphical user interface was familiar enough that I could just start using it without referring to the documentation. (We don’t need no stinkin’ manual.)

At this point, I am feeling quite confident, so I connected up the network (Ethernet to DSL at our house). The computer didn’t see the network and I could not find any way to reconfigure it. At this point, I broke down and checked the documentation, expecting to find a friendly little section for people that didn’t have the network plugged in during the installation. No such luck. Eventually, I gave up and re-installed the entire OS with the ethernet cable connected. Although that seems a bit extreme, it did take care of the problem.

Here I am, writing this blog post using Ernie with a new set of brains. (Ernie, not me.) Good old Firefox was automatically installed and is ready to go without any additional effort. Similarly, the OpenOffice suite is installed as part of the Ubuntu release. Not bad, not bad at all.

As described, I did have a few bumps in the road on the installation but nothing too dramatic. My experience with various versions of Windows is not any better. The machine does seem to run kind of slow, in terms of loading applications and responding to GUI changes. I suspect this is due to the limited PC memory. It probably runs about as fast as the Win98, though. I was just expecting better from lean-and-mean linux.

73, Bob K0NR