Ubuntu on a mini PC?

[sebastian.s]

So this fall i will go to college, and i need a laptop/netbook for my studies i am mostly going to use it for email, word processing, create presentations etc, it is not going to be used for hard-core virtual machines. Ofcourse i would like to use Ubuntu on it!

So i have my eyes set on this mini PC.

HP Mini 210-4120eo
Price: 445 USD.


10,1" LED-screen
Intel Atom N2800
1GB DDR3 RAM
320GB harddrive
Intel® Graphics 3650
9 hours of battery

Beats Audio
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3650

I don't have much experience with ubuntu on a mini PC, i would like to hear your opinions. Should i buy it? :confused: If you have any tips be sure to post.



If you have further questions about anything just ask. :)

[ahallubuntu]

I would not recommend a netbook (small laptop with Intel Atom CPU) for what you need. Even though you say you need only to do email and web surfing, an Atom is going to be really slow for that. Netbooks are great for short-term vacations and such where you need a light computer with long battery life. I have an Acer netbook I always take with me when I must pack light to travel overseas, and it's great for that, but it's far too slow to use for an every-day computer, even for email and web use.

I have Ubuntu on my Acer. It works pretty well - since I don't have run an anti-virus program, it's a little faster than using Windows. But it's still really slow. Watching videos (even just YouTube) can be challenging: I can basically do it if NOTHING ELSE is running (not even Gmail in another Chrome Window). I really can't do more than one thing at a time. I can use it but it's quite a challenge.

This Atom CPU in the HP you list may be a bit faster than mine but it's still not going to be very fast.

I would suggest looking into an Ultrabook if you can afford it. These are just starting to come out (Intel is pushing them big-time this year). They are PC versions of the thin Macbook Air. They will have long battery life but be much, much faster than a netbook. Or, look for a laptop that has the ability to use a long-life battery. My Dell Inspiron 1545 for example (now a few years old) came with a 6 cell battery, but I bought a 9 cell battery on eBay for $35 and get 4+ hours out of it. Not all laptops can use a long-life battery.

As for what's compatible with Ubuntu: look at the pinned "Laptop Compatibility" thread at the top of this forum page. Also, some laptops are Ubuntu-certified. For example, here's a list of Dell laptops that are Ubuntu-certified:

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/make/Dell/

If you are buying retail, you may also be able to boot a live CD or a live USB stick on the store model before buying it, to make sure that version of Ubuntu can run and work on the machine you are about to buy.

[sebastian.s]

I would not recommend a netbook (small laptop with Intel Atom CPU) for what you need. Even though you say you need only to do email and web surfing, an Atom is going to be really slow for that. Netbooks are great for short-term vacations and such where you need a light computer with long battery life. I have an Acer netbook I always take with me when I must pack light to travel overseas, and it's great for that, but it's far too slow to use for an every-day computer, even for email and web use.

I have Ubuntu on my Acer. It works pretty well - since I don't have run an anti-virus program, it's a little faster than using Windows. But it's still really slow. Watching videos (even just YouTube) can be challenging: I can basically do it if NOTHING ELSE is running (not even Gmail in another Chrome Window). I really can't do more than one thing at a time. I can use it but it's quite a challenge.

This Atom CPU in the HP you list may be a bit faster than mine but it's still not going to be very fast.

I would suggest looking into an Ultrabook if you can afford it. These are just starting to come out (Intel is pushing them big-time this year). They are PC versions of the thin Macbook Air. They will have long battery life but be much, much faster than a netbook. Or, look for a laptop that has the ability to use a long-life battery. My Dell Inspiron 1545 for example (now a few years old) came with a 6 cell battery, but I bought a 9 cell battery on eBay for $35 and get 4+ hours out of it. Not all laptops can use a long-life battery.

As for what's compatible with Ubuntu: look at the pinned "Laptop Compatibility" thread at the top of this forum page. Also, some laptops are Ubuntu-certified. For example, here's a list of Dell laptops that are Ubuntu-certified:

http://www.ubuntu.com/certification/make/Dell/

If you are buying retail, you may also be able to boot a live CD or a live USB stick on the store model before buying it, to make sure that version of Ubuntu can run and work on the machine you are about to buy.

Thanks, this just the information that i need :D well i am going to work all summer so i will be on the lookout for an other laptop. The reason i was thinking about getting a mini PC is beacuse the light weight, at my other shcool we used laptops heavy as tombstones. But if preformance is that bad using this kind of processor i will probably buy something else. ;)

[ajgreeny]

I'm not sure that I agree with ahallubuntu about the speed of the machine you showed in your original post, though I would not personally use Ubuntu on it but either Xubuntu or Lubuntu.

I have Lubuntu running on a similar but now 2yr old netbook, with an Atom N270 processor, 1GB ram and Intel graphics (an MSI U100 re-badged) which works extremely well, and is much faster than my main machine, which I accept is getting on a bit. Both machines are quite fast enough for me to use for what I need, which sounds much like your requirements. I even have Libreoffice on the netbook in place of Abiword and Gnumeric, to allow for easier syncing with my main desktop, and LO runs fine. I think "slow" means different things to different users.

I agree that the screen may be too small for complete comfort in all your everyday work, and the minimum I would want to use for all general work would be a 14in screen, better still, a 15in.

Just my opinion, but I thought it worth saying.

[LiamOS]

I have a netbook with a lubuntu(and a gentoo) installation which I use in college, and I don't find it slow at all. It has 1G RAM and a dual 1.66GHz atom.

That being said, I do my word processing in vim or use LaTeX where appropriate, so I have no experience with the speed that Abiword or Libreoffice would work at.

I think if you plan on doing a lot of word processing and making presentations on this machine, a small laptop might be a better idea than a netbook.

[sebastian.s]

Ah i see, with the replys so far, i think that the main problem ain't the speed but rather the screen size?

Still i am not quite sure :confused:

Best deal would be a laptop at 14-15" inch screen with equal preformance?

[ahallubuntu]

I guess we all have our own idea of what "slow" means. For comparison, my Dell 15" laptop is 3+ years old with a 2.5GHZ Core 2 Duo CPU, hardly the fastest you could buy even then, and it is much faster than my Acer netbook. The Acer is certainly usable just frustrating to use for long periods.

I strongly suggest you spend some time PLAYING with one of these netbooks before you buy one and see how the speed feels to you. Open a couple of windows; watch a few YouTube videos. Don't expect installing Ubuntu instead Windows to double the speed, either. (If you are in the US and have a Costco membership, note that they give you a 90 day return policy on all computers, so you can try one out and see how fast it is, how Ubuntu works on it, etc. and return it if it's not satisfactory.)

I don't think you can buy a new 14"-15" laptop with performance nearly as slow as an Atom CPU - you'd have to go back to an old Pentium III or Pentium 4 most likely. I'd get a dual core CPU in any new laptop I'd buy today. What today is called a "Pentium" in a new laptop is actually a dual core version of the i3 without some of the speed improvements. I'd probably not get a Celeron as a laptop CPU unless I was saving a lot of money on it. I prefer Intel CPUs especially in a laptop, though.

[wilee-nilee]

I used a acer d250, with a atom 1.6, Through the last 2 years of college myself with full installs of many Linux distros including Ubuntu, XP and W7.

I bumped the ram to 2 gigs though the max it would run, a pretty quick little computer.

http://www.cnet.com/laptops/acer-aspire-one-d250/4505-3121_7-33676723.html

[mastablasta]

I guess we all have our own idea of what "slow" means. For comparison, my Dell 15" laptop is 3+ years old with a 2.5GHZ Core 2 Duo CPU, hardly the fastest you could buy even then, and it is much faster than my Acer netbook. The Acer is certainly usable just frustrating to use for long periods.

I strongly suggest you spend some time PLAYING with one of these netbooks before you buy one and see how the speed feels to you. Open a couple of windows; watch a few YouTube videos. Don't expect installing Ubuntu instead Windows to double the speed, either. (If you are in the US and have a Costco membership, note that they give you a 90 day return policy on all computers, so you can try one out and see how fast it is, how Ubuntu works on it, etc. and return it if it's not satisfactory.)

I don't think you can buy a new 14"-15" laptop with performance nearly as slow as an Atom CPU - you'd have to go back to an old Pentium III or Pentium 4 most likely. I'd get a dual core CPU in any new laptop I'd buy today. What today is called a "Pentium" in a new laptop is actually a dual core version of the i3 without some of the speed improvements. I'd probably not get a Celeron as a laptop CPU unless I was saving a lot of money on it. I prefer Intel CPUs especially in a laptop, though.

actually lately you have dual core atoms in these netbooks and they perform reasonably well. well i was checking some reviews and benchmarks.

might be that your GPu was slowing you down? or you had an older CPU?

you can get a cheap 15" notebook with low powered CPU these days there are plenty of AMD variants (E-450) and also low powered intel. i think 10" is indeed a great thing if all you need is soemthing portable but for work as student i too would sugest you get a 15" screen. you can check the weight before you buy it and with low powered CPU you will get it for less than this notebook. for example they sell notebooks (15") with AMD fusion (which has CPU comparable to atom but a bit better GPU) for 350 EUR.

[carl4926]

I have a Asus eeepc
Came with win7 starter which I erased

Bumped the RAM to 2GB

Ubuntu runs by far the best of a long list I tried (Including X and L ubuntu's)

They are limited, I would agree. But kinda handy

My cpu info is

lscpu
Architecture: i686
CPU op-mode(s): 32-bit, 64-bit
Byte Order: Little Endian
CPU(s): 4
On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
Thread(s) per core: 2
Core(s) per socket: 2
Socket(s): 1
Vendor ID: GenuineIntel
CPU family: 6
Model: 28
Stepping: 10
CPU MHz: 1000.000
BogoMIPS: 2999.73
L1d cache: 24K
L1i cache: 32K
L2 cache: 512K

I run 32 bit Ubuntu. It seems to run better for some reason

[sebastian.s]

I really appreciate all the replys, very usefull information. I will make sure to vist a vendor and try out diffrent laptops, to test screen size, weight and preformance.

I will post when i have made my decision, to see what you guys think.

[mastablasta]

sicne you have time to do the testing, can you let us know how the overall speed feels like.

i did soem more online research as i was looking for something very portable, light and small. and i can't decied is it better to get a tablet or netbook. while some say netbooks are fine and have good baterry life other reviews scare me on the general speed. how fast are actually these CPU? some say speed is descent others that it loks sort of like an enhanced P III.

i have an old notebook with 1,2Ghz athlon, 20 GB hdd and 256MB ram. Chrunchbang works fine on it at the moment (very stable, most stuff recognised out of the box and working - i.e. volume buttons, dual screen...). ot's an ok laptop for browsing, but the porblem is

RAM can't really be increased much (max 384MB) and
most importanly - it's heavy and battery even when new can last about 2 hours at most. even in winXP . must beabout 10 year old maschine.
as a bonus the frame is cracking (too bad because i really like the screen).

i could live with most stuff, but it being heavy doesn't really make it that portable. also the battery life - 2 hours is not enough IMO...

[Jugsins]

sicne you have time to do the testing, can you let us know how the overall speed feels like.

i did soem more online research as i was looking for something very portable, light and small. and i can't decied is it better to get a tablet or netbook. while some say netbooks are fine and have good baterry life other reviews scare me on the general speed. how fast are actually these CPU? some say speed is descent others that it loks sort of like an enhanced P III.

i have an old notebook with 1,2Ghz athlon, 20 GB hdd and 256MB ram. Chrunchbang works fine on it at the moment (very stable, most stuff recognised out of the box and working - i.e. volume buttons, dual screen...). ot's an ok laptop for browsing, but the porblem is

RAM can't really be increased much (max 384MB) and
most importanly - it's heavy and battery even when new can last about 2 hours at most. even in winXP . must beabout 10 year old maschine.
as a bonus the frame is cracking (too bad because i really like the screen).

i could live with most stuff, but it being heavy doesn't really make it that portable. also the battery life - 2 hours is not enough IMO...

I'd avoid a tablet. Honestly, they are cool tech but not nearly as useful as having a keyboard. Even after months of owning a nook booting android off an sd card and my phone running android; I still can't do any legitimate typing on either of them. Touch screen typing is slow, cumbersome, and difficult to be accurate due to lack of feedback for me. Touchscreens are good as simple devices for calling/reading/consuming media/etc, but not creating or developing anything.

[carl4926]

I'd avoid a tablet. Honestly, they are cool tech but not nearly as useful as having a keyboard. Even after months of owning a nook booting android off an sd card and my phone running android; I still can't do any legitimate typing on either of them. Touch screen typing is slow, cumbersome, and difficult to be accurate due to lack of feedback for me. Touchscreens are good as simple devices for calling/reading/consuming media/etc, but not creating or developing anything.
Yes. I agree

[cortman]

I'd avoid a tablet. Honestly, they are cool tech but not nearly as useful as having a keyboard. Even after months of owning a nook booting android off an sd card and my phone running android; I still can't do any legitimate typing on either of them. Touch screen typing is slow, cumbersome, and difficult to be accurate due to lack of feedback for me. Touchscreens are good as simple devices for calling/reading/consuming media/etc, but not creating or developing anything.

Very well said- I decided on a netbook myself. I bought an Acer Aspire One 722. Ubuntu runs great on it out of the box, though I was holding my breath with the wireless card and the ATI graphics card.
I wound up installing Bodhi Linux (http://bodhilinux.com/) on it and could not be happier. Boots in about 25 seconds, the Enlightenment composite manager gives me sweet graphics effects, and even heavyweight applications like Firefox perform perfectly.
Enlightenment can be configured however you want; you can make your own radical desktop environment to suit your needs or stick with a stock taskbar and start button type arrangement.
Big +1 for Bodhi.

[lmsart]

So this fall i will go to college, and i need a laptop/netbook for my studies i am mostly going to use it for email, word processing, create presentations etc, it is not going to be used for hard-core virtual machines. Ofcourse i would like to use Ubuntu on it!

So i have my eyes set on this mini PC.

HP Mini 210-4120eo
Price: 445 USD.


10,1" LED-screen
Intel Atom N2800
1GB DDR3 RAM
320GB harddrive
Intel® Graphics 3650
9 hours of battery

Beats Audio
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3650

I don't have much experience with ubuntu on a mini PC, i would like to hear your opinions. Should i buy it? :confused: If you have any tips be sure to post.



If you have further questions about anything just ask. :)
guess I should chime in here, although it is probably too late. I am writing this on my new HP Mini, N2800 and 2GB RAM. It's quicker than my Lenovo, quick to start, quick to surf, just a lot quicker than any of my other machines - almost as fast as some of my macs. Here's my config:

HP Mini 210-4000 (Customized)
Intel Atom N2800
2GB DDR3
500 GB5400 RPM Hard Drive
10.1 WSVGA LED-BL 1024x600
Webcam with Integrated Digital Mic
802.11 WLAN

Running Ubuntu 12.04

I love this machine!

[carl4926]

I love this machine!Thanks to Ubuntu !

[lcman]

guess I should chime in here, although it is probably too late. I am writing this on my new HP Mini, N2800 and 2GB RAM. It's quicker than my Lenovo, quick to start, quick to surf, just a lot quicker than any of my other machines - almost as fast as some of my macs. Here's my config:

HP Mini 210-4000 (Customized)
Intel Atom N2800
2GB DDR3
500 GB5400 RPM Hard Drive
10.1 WSVGA LED-BL 1024x600
Webcam with Integrated Digital Mic
802.11 WLAN

Running Ubuntu 12.04

I love this machine!

I know it's a little late but are you serious here? I mean you have an Atom N2800 which comes with PowerVR graphics. This chip has the GMA 3650 graphics processor and there's no good driver for that on any Linux.

The best driver you can get is from the PPA with only 2D support. I have a Toshiba NB520 myself with the same specs as yours and it's slow as hell on Ubuntu. It's a little faster on Windows because of better drivers but seriously the computer is unusable on Linux.

Idk man maybe you're not telling the truth :guitar:

[walker195]

you can get a decent laptop for 299-599 that would be good for what you need but netbooks are for the most part useless as a day to day pc a used pc is a good option i recommend geeks.com they have windows xp notebooks up to windows7 core i7 laptops and plenty more even used macs