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wildman4god
February 5th, 2009, 02:14 AM
I heard from a geek squad agent that netbooks are pure junk, that over half of the netbooks they sell are returned because the mother board went bad. Has anyone else have any hardware issues with netbooks, I want to know before wasteing my money, I want to buy the older eeepc surf off from ebay, because they are dirt cheap, and I was going to see how well ubuntu worked on it with the ext4 file system and that new ui that hp has on their new netbook: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/02/04/hp-releases-netbook-interface-for-ubuntu/#continued

Any advise would be appresiated.

Grant A.
February 5th, 2009, 02:17 AM
All Best Buy cares about is your money. The salesmen get commissons for every computer they sell, of course they would tell you that the cheap computer is crap.

Jesterday
February 5th, 2009, 02:18 AM
Netbooks are awesome. eeePC Surf not so much. It is a great netbook and works well with Ubuntu, but the lack of hard drive space is bad. I had an 8GB Memory card installed and it was okay.

I have an acer aspire one and it rocks, another version of the eeePC would be okay, but I wouldn't recommend the surf.

OutOfReach
February 5th, 2009, 02:18 AM
My family hasn't had a problem with the Acer Aspire One netbook. It's fine, a little slow, but hey that's why they call it a netbook, right?

wildman4god
February 5th, 2009, 02:26 AM
Thanks for the recommendations, If I was going to actually be using this netbook for work I would probably get the acer aspire, however I am trying an experiment so hard drive space isn't an issue and the slower prossecor is better for this experiment so i can see just how well ubuntu can run on a slower machine, and like I said I can find the surf on ebay for dirt cheap prices. The only thing I was worried about was me buying it the have it not work when I get it. The other point of the experiment is to showcase the ext4 file systems speed, since it was made with ssd's in mind. Ext4 show greatly increase its proformance (I had ubuntu on a 900 Mhz desktop before and it didn't do to bad, lot less lag then windows, and that was with ext2)

HammerOfDoubt
February 5th, 2009, 03:32 AM
I recently bought a Sylvania G Meso netbook. It had Hardy UNR opn it. I wiped that and put Intrepid, trimmed it down some, and it's working better that what was on there (which had serious issues out of the box). It's defintely not slow.

I work for Tiger Direct. Very very few of our netbooks are returned, not counting the Refurbished ones, which always have a higher defect rate.

zmjjmz
February 5th, 2009, 04:49 AM
Why would you trust a guy from the Geek Squad?
My Dell Mini is fine :D (Well, it will be, but it's my fault)

wolfen69
February 5th, 2009, 04:56 AM
i'm selling my eeepc 2G surf. PM me if you want to talk. i live in CT. how much are they on ebay?

t0p
February 5th, 2009, 01:02 PM
I have an Eee PC 4G and it's wonderful. Runs Intrepid like a good 'un. The 4 GB SSD is a pain, but I stuck in a 4 GB high-capacity SD card and that helps.

nothingspecial
February 5th, 2009, 02:23 PM
My wife has an aspire one, I have a Samsung NC10. Both run Ubuntu 8.10 smooth as a sausage.

Deamos
February 5th, 2009, 03:27 PM
I have an Asus EEE1000HA netbook and it runs like a dream. You have to understand what a netbook is and is not.

It is:
A cheap and highly portable Laptop
Made for Internet use (Web Pages, Email, and Cloud based file storage)
Originally meant for Linux based systems.

It is not:
You Desktop PC Replacement
Powerful. (Most of them run with a 1.6MHZ Intel Atom Processor. Low Power Usage)

Once you get over the fact of what it is, it is wonderful. These things are what Laptops should have been. There is no need to get a portable, desktop strength Laptop when all you use it for is to browse the Web.

frrobert
February 5th, 2009, 04:28 PM
I want to echo Deamos comments I also have a 1000HA and I love it.

I am running Ubuntu with Adam's kernel and have had great results it is not a desktop replacement but it is a great portable tool.

twiddler
February 6th, 2009, 03:56 AM
I just purchased an Acer Aspire One with Linpus on it. Works ok, upgrade firefox to ver. 3. I wanted to put Ubuntu on it but I hear there are problems with the wifi and standby, also it can't use the storage expansion. I hope someone can make a guide that could address all these issues, then I'd jump on ubuntu in a heart beat.

nothingspecial
February 6th, 2009, 09:04 AM
Here`s the guide (https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne)

3rdalbum
February 6th, 2009, 11:33 AM
I just purchased an Acer Aspire One with Linpus on it. Works ok, upgrade firefox to ver. 3. I wanted to put Ubuntu on it but I hear there are problems with the wifi and standby, also it can't use the storage expansion.

I don't have any real problems with the wifi. Occasionally it boots up and won't connect to the network, but most of the time it just comes right up. There are no problems with suspend that I have observed (or are you talking about hibernation?)

The SD card reader doesn't seem to work, but this really wasn't anything important to me.

MedianMajik
February 24th, 2009, 07:00 AM
I love my Eee, but the keyboard can be annoying. I don't even mind the small screen. The new HP Mini is awesome and I would recommend one for under $400. The Eee has a great community and works well. One nice feature of the older models is buying a high capacity battery (10+ hours) from China is about $50 new. I got a plastic case for $5 on ebay. Got to love the price.
Edit: I bought mine the month they were released and it has been rock solid ever since!

sgosnell
February 24th, 2009, 08:04 AM
I have an Asus EEE, and I love it. I rarely turn on my desktop. It's small, light, runs cool, and it works. It runs Ubuntu very well. If you're going to do a lot of gaming, or do heavy graphic, video, or audio processing, then a netbook probably isn't what you want, but if you want something that does most things well and is very portable, then a netbook is exactly what you want. The EEE is what I've been waiting years for - small, light, SSD instead of a HDD. I got very tired of lugging a big, heavy laptop around, and I'm glad it's gone.

I also agree with others above - the line between geek and idiot is very fine, especially at Best Buy.

WalmartSniperLX
February 24th, 2009, 08:32 AM
Yeah the Best Buy employees will only want people buying more expensive products. Not only do they make commission (if they still do), but they reach their daily budget/goal faster if they only sell more expensive computers with software bundles and install services. I used to work at Circuit City in sales and warehouse. The business is literally a mirror image to that of Best Buy. I want a netbook for myself.

wmcbrine
February 24th, 2009, 09:33 AM
Best Buy always says they don't do commissions, but their employees often act in much the manner one would expect if they were making commissions.

billgoldberg
February 24th, 2009, 12:37 PM
I heard from a geek squad agent that netbooks are pure junk, that over half of the netbooks they sell are returned because the mother board went bad. Has anyone else have any hardware issues with netbooks, I want to know before wasteing my money, I want to buy the older eeepc surf off from ebay, because they are dirt cheap, and I was going to see how well ubuntu worked on it with the ext4 file system and that new ui that hp has on their new netbook: http://www.downloadsquad.com/2009/02/04/hp-releases-netbook-interface-for-ubuntu/#continued

Any advise would be appresiated.

I hadn't have a single hardware problem with my Asus Eeepc 900.

It's rock solid.

Just remember to tweak your linux distro for SSD drives (no swap, ext2, ... google it).