Looking for a Good Netbook distro

[beastrace91]

So I just recently had come into my possession an Asus EEE PC. The distro of Xandros that ships with it, while better than windows, still had an EULA and I'd really rather get something open source on it. That being said anyone recommend a good netbook distro? I found the recently released EasyPeasy (http://www.geteasypeasy.com/) (formerly Ubuntu EEE) and it looks pretty good, I was just wondering if there where any other decent distros people liked to use for lighter weigh systems. My netbook currently only has a 4gig SSD drive and 1 gig of ram so what ever I am going to be running needs to be slightly lighter weight.

~Jeff

[jespdj]

Ubuntu Netbook Remix?

I'm running the regular (not Netbook Remix) Ubuntu 9.04 on my Dell Mini 9 and it works very well. The normal Ubuntu 9.04 does fit in 4 GB, however you won't have much storage space left.

I have a 32 GB SSD in my Mini 9, which is way more than what you need for Ubuntu.

[Johnsie]

I've been using standard Ubuntu Desktop Edition on my EEEPC for a year now. Works great, although I do miss having Windows on dual boot. My eeepc only has 4gb so I had to choose rather than having the option to dual boot. When I get my EEEPC 904HA things will be sweet.

If you only have 4gb then you can follow a tutorial compress everything in /usr which will give you about 2gb free space, but having a compressed /usr needs maintenance ever month or so.

The tutorial is at: http://po-ru.com/diary/linux-liposuction-or-xubuntu-in-under-a-gig-on-the-eee-pc/

The title suggests that this technique is for Xubuntu, but I can confirm that it works on regular Ubuntu too.Make sure and read the comments because some of them have some useful tips.

[billgoldberg]

I'm now running Ubuntu 9.04 on my Asus EeePC 900.

Everything works OOTB.

Well, haven't tested the webcam yet.

Before that I used Eeebuntu, based on Ubuntu 8.10.

That also worked OOTB.

Both operating systems are fast on it.

[beastrace91]

Alrighty, thanks for the input. Going to play around with EasyPeasy for a short bit and see how I like it. I am hopefully picking up a 32gig SSD for it later today, that way if I decide I don't like EasyPeasy I can just change to Jaunty, good to know it all works OOTB

~Jeff

[Johnsie]

While we're on the topic of operating systems on netbooks, has anyone been using jaunty on an eeepc? 701 specifically?

[aeiah]

i like crunchbang. we have it on our acer aspire one. there's a special chuncheee version that has a custom kernel for the eee so everything should be optimised out of the box. crunchbang may be a bit too nerdy to look at for your liking but its based on ubuntu so you can customise very easily.

here's what mine looks like (http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5104/2009040512389264801024x.png)

i found easypeasy and the netbook remix to be annoying and slow. i guess i just didnt get along with all those big buttons down the sides and whatnot. i only really use exaile, firefox, thunar, mplayer and the terminal

[snowpine]

Ubuntu 9.04 is definitely the best Ubuntu release yet for netbooks (such as the eee). If you go with 9.04, you don't need to deal with amateur "remixes" like Easy Peasy (with all due respect to the Easy Peasy creators).

I personally have Cruncheee 8.10 installed on my eee (which I don't use very often) and Crunchbang 9.04 on my Dell Mini 9 (my main netbook).

[sertse]

I wish people realise that netbooks, at least the ones currently available, (ARM is a different thing altogether) are just another sort of computer hardware.

Like other hardware, distros' compatibility with it increases over time, as devs have more time to work things out. Netbooks are nothing special to be singled out.

Personally, if you're using on of the more established netbook models, Jaunty would be fine with it, So will Mandriva 2009.1, Fedora 11 or other well developed distro when it's out. Simply because by now (the current release "cycle" where many distro are now releasing the latest versions), distros' have caught up with netbooks, just like any other hardware.

Conclusion: Decide like anything else. I'll probably agree with snowpine, myself. :P

[mohitchawla]

i like crunchbang. we have it on our acer aspire one. there's a special chuncheee version that has a custom kernel for the eee so everything should be optimised out of the box. crunchbang may be a bit too nerdy to look at for your liking but its based on ubuntu so you can customise very easily.

here's what mine looks like (http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/5104/2009040512389264801024x.png)

i found easypeasy and the netbook remix to be annoying and slow. i guess i just didnt get along with all those big buttons down the sides and whatnot. i only really use exaile, firefox, thunar, mplayer and the terminal

Crunchbang seconded. Either version-the standard or the eeepc version will work well. It finally ended the netbook-distro-hopping for me....but now I am getting all excited about trying Jaunty (standard desktop version only...the netbook/mid version don't work well for me). ;)

[speedwell68]

I have a Acer Aspire One A150 and have tried Easy Peasy, Linux4One and I am currently using UNR 9.04. UNR is by far and away the best distro I have tried. It is certainly the fastest and most stable.