10 reasons Linux should be your netbook operating system [Archive]

Johnsie

August 26th, 2009, 09:52 AM

Ubuntu runs very hot on my netbook and the battery life is low. I like how easy it is to switch Wi-fi networks and connect to 3G or a VPN though.

My main problem comes with compatibility issues. I need to use VMWare Infrastructure client to admin the VMWare servers at work via a VPN. This is not available on Ubuntu. I would also use some shared printers over the VPN. These printers are Toshiba-Tec SX4 printers which are currently incompatible with Linux.

Suspend/hibernate doesn't seem to be as quick as Windows 7 so if I'm in a hurry I will choose Windows 7.

Apart from that Ubuntu is pretty good on my netbooks. I have and Advent 4213 and an 701 eeepc 701. On the 701 Linux is the best, but on the Advent with the bigger hard drive I would say Windows 7 is better. I mostly use the Advent.

Luca_turicci

August 26th, 2009, 10:45 AM

I may say, Using your netbook to do something at your work... BAD IDEA. they're for personal use.

about battery life, i get 2:21 hours on my HP mini 110

about videos, i run karmic alphas and videos look ok.

good reasons for me to use linux on a nebtook:

1.- the installation is very small, about 2 gb
2.- Desktop is easy to customise so a 10" screen is much more bigger than it seems

** maybe not that big, but big enough for me, and i like it **

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/599/pantallazouuz.png

zakany

August 26th, 2009, 01:58 PM

What do folks do about virus protection? Do they actually browse with Windows without AV running, or do they take the performance hit to keep their netbook clean?

Of the ten points, OS security is the one that I find most important. Dandis points out another big issue (battery life), which makes the decision a difficult one at this point.

Tristam Green

August 26th, 2009, 02:11 PM

I dunno. I've tinkered with about 5 different distros, WinXP Home SP3, and Windows 7 Pro on my Acer Aspire One D150.

I haven't found anything (read: anything yet) that runs as smoothly, cool, battery-conscious, or clean as Windows 7 Pro. None of the "light" distros (!#, Sidux, UNR, Puppy) do exactly what I want them to do without massive amounts of fixing or kernel reloads, and while that's okay for some people, it's just not what I necessarily want my netbook (a simple machine) to be.

I'm of course going to keep trying, but I doubt I'll seriously find anything satisfactory.

As an aside, I get 6 hours even in Windows 7 Pro on my 6-cell batt.

Sidux (current Linux distro): 5.5 hours; reduced, but not so much to make me go "OH GOD MY BATTERY LIFE"

Mighty_Joe

August 26th, 2009, 02:49 PM

I can think of one very important reason NOT to use Ubuntu on my netbook: battery life (http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/09/08/25/157209/Why-Is-Linux-Notebook-Battery-Life-Still-Poor).

This. I use Ubuntu on a bootable USB drive on my work laptop when I'm doing personal stuff and the difference between it and XP on the hard drive is huge. I get an easy two-and-a-half hours with XP and about an hour and a few minutes with Ubuntu. It's not a big deal, because I'm never far from an outlet, but I wish it were better.

dragos240

August 26th, 2009, 02:57 PM

I have archlinux on my netbook, and it works fine. The server works fine, X has no problems, and everything is in tip top shape :)

LowSky

August 26th, 2009, 02:58 PM

Windows XP runs much better on my Lenovo S10. Video is actually watchalbe and my batter life is over the 2 hour mark, with a 3cell (way too small IMO).
UNR runs under 2 hours, runs hotter and video is horrendous to watch.

But on UNR my bluetooth mouse works better, I'm not worrying about virus's and the desktop is more customizable.

LowSky

August 26th, 2009, 02:59 PM

I have archlinux on my netbook, and it works fine. The server works fine, X has no problems, and everything is in tip top shape :)

what DE are you using? Gnome, KDE, or something else?

dragos240

August 26th, 2009, 03:01 PM

what DE are you using? Gnome, KDE, or something else?

Mostly CLI, but sometimes fluxbox + gnome.

matthewbpt

August 26th, 2009, 03:04 PM

I agree that the battery life is quite poor out of the box, but with the right tweaks it is just as good. My eee-pc has a battery life of about 5 hours with wifi enabled, and 7 with wifi disabled. With the eee-control these power tweaks are very easy, but I wouldn't know how to do the equivalent with another netbook. What eee-control does is underclocks the CPU automatically when the AC power is unplugged, my manipulating the FSB of the eee, works a treat!

dragos240

August 26th, 2009, 03:09 PM

I get 7 hr batt life on my archbox :D

Johnsie

August 26th, 2009, 03:26 PM

Using your netbook to do something at your work... BAD IDEA. they're for personal use.

How's it a bad idea? It's the most convenient computer to move around from office to office and is as powerful as many laptops. I'm hardly going to lug a full sized laptop around with me everywhere I go. If people use blackberries and other pda's for work I don't see why people cant use netbooks.

matthewbpt

August 26th, 2009, 04:10 PM

How's it a bad idea? It's the most convenient computer to move around from office to office and is as powerful as many laptops. I'm hardly going to lug a full sized laptop around with me everywhere I go. If people use blackberries and other pda's for work I don't see why people cant use netbooks.
I agree, I use my netbook to type all my lecture notes during lectures, it's great and now all my notes are much more organized then when I used to handwrite them, but if I had a regular sized laptop I certainly would never take the trouble of taking it to all my lectures.

Cenotaph

August 26th, 2009, 04:14 PM

It depends on the kind of work you do, obviously. Anyway, it seems Windows 7 is pretty powerful with netbooks as promised, and ubuntu isnt the most friendly OS to your battery life.

LowSky

August 26th, 2009, 04:46 PM

I agree, I use my netbook to type all my lecture notes during lectures, it's great and now all my notes are much more organized then when I used to handwrite them, but if I had a regular sized laptop I certainly would never take the trouble of taking it to all my lectures.

I purchased mine for the exact reason. I got some stares at first (seeing a mini red netbook), but as time progressed people stated to become envioius of my note as I used tomboy and it could reference my notes to older posts. Wasn't so great for finals though, our teacher said we could use our notes, but no internet devices like phones and PC's, I was kinda upset but I was able to print them out which was nice.

It depends on the kind of work you do, obviously. Anyway, it seems Windows 7 is pretty powerful with netbooks as promised, and ubuntu isnt the most friendly OS to your battery life.

Im really thinking of reformatting my netbook's hard drive and putting win7 and Arch linux on it.

Stan_1936

August 26th, 2009, 06:06 PM

The Intel video performance is absolutely horrid for GNU/Linux still, especially Ubuntu. I couldn't even watch a video without it being choppy.

Still waiting for Karmic, which has the new UXA drivers.

...it isn't choppy.

Me too. I find Intel's drivers to run Compiz and multimedia content SIGNIFICANTLY smoother than nVidia's. Atleast that's based on my personal experience(laptop and desktop respectively, so I don't know about a performance hit with Netbooks).

Onoskelis

August 26th, 2009, 06:50 PM

Baneblade

August 26th, 2009, 07:07 PM

Also, the ethernet doesn't work out of the box on my Acer Aspire One 250, so I have to compile it from source. The webcam doesn't work either, so you have to upgrade ALSA.

Combining this with the poor Intel performance and battery life, why even use Ubuntu for the netbook?

I use GNU/Linux on my desktop, and Windows 7 on my netbook. Works perfectly.

The Intel issues you are talking about were fixed months ago! Run your updates mate. You will probably find that most if not all of the other issues you have mentioned will go away too. Updates ftw!

Luca_turicci

August 26th, 2009, 08:44 PM

I don't know for the Aspire One, but with my Mini 110 it was almost 100% working out of the box. Yeah, windows 7 works better with the video, but, i hate antivirus and stuff.

I use my netbook too to manage my school notes, homework, and stuff, plus some information aout my job, costumers info, schedules, etc. That kind of work is ok, and it's great, easy to organize and to transport. But more "serious" work is a bad Idea.

jonathonblake

August 27th, 2009, 03:04 AM

I may say, Using your netbook to do something at your work... BAD IDEA. they're for personal use.

I've seen a couple of companies running pilot projects for use by their employees. Cheaper than a laptop, and less risk of losing confidential company data. The intent is to eliminate both the company cell phone and company laptop, by using a VOIP netbook client, and all company data in the cloud.

jonathon

hanzomon4

August 27th, 2009, 03:16 AM

reason #11: Moblin

Luca_turicci

August 27th, 2009, 05:47 AM

reason #11: Moblin

Not in the HP Mini yet :(

cody7002002

August 27th, 2009, 11:31 PM

I own an Eeepc 1000he with Jaunty running on it and I don't have any problems with video or anything but the battery life is pretty bad. I only get about 3 or so hours of continuous use and like others have said, it runs really hot.

I love it for everything else but if they could work out some things with the power management, it would be perfect.

NormanFLinux

August 29th, 2009, 11:00 PM

The main problem is the lack of good drivers for Via and Intel chipset netbooks. Right now its open source. Which is nowhere as good as those found in Windows.

Teh Lurv

August 31st, 2009, 03:17 AM

The main problem is the lack of good drivers for Via and Intel chipset netbooks. Right now its open source. Which is nowhere as good as those found in Windows.

Agreed. Laptopmag had an article recently where they found drivers made a big difference in netbook battery life between Windows XP and Windows 7.

PhilMize

September 8th, 2009, 07:28 PM

I'm in IT and I freaking love my HP Mini for work. the 6 cell gives me a steady 6 hour battery life. I also purchased the 3 cell to swap when the 6 cell dies. I can usually work a 12 hour shift with my netbook on 85% of the time. As far as issues with ubuntu as appose to xp, the screen sometimes is too small, a couple menus just dont fit (even on UNR). And sound and NIC were troublesome to get working. But it's typical of a Linux machine. Atleast when I fix that I don't ever have to worry about problems with my netbook again. I ran 7 for a while and it was slow, and made the fan on my hp run full speed constantly.

My 2 cents...:P

LowSky

September 8th, 2009, 07:38 PM

I ran 7 for a while and it was slow, and made the fan on my hp run full speed constantly.

You need to change the power options, The balanced option is really poor and you need to create your own. Oddly it runs great on mine (Lenovo s10)

I tried to install Arch Linux on mine and almost all is well except for wireless. I expected that, but really annoying.'

I find UNR to be rather annoying with its maximize every application. a vanilla install runs a bit better if you take it down to one panel. I will say though the Intel driver stink in 9.04.

Arch and 9.10 worked much better. I guess the newer driver fixes some issues.

speedwell68

September 8th, 2009, 09:03 PM

I watch a lot of video on my eeebuntu-running EeePC. The tiny screen doesn't make for the best viewing experience, but it isn't choppy.

So do I. I share mine with my wife.:D She uses it for surfing and I use it for watching videos when I am on night shifts. The screen is small but I encode my video files for the exact screen size. I get perfect quality with a small file size.

NormanFLinux

September 8th, 2009, 09:51 PM

I've found LXDE, which uses a lot of GNOME components, to be a superlight and user-friendly netbook operating system. It uses the X11 environment and has every GNOME and KDE do for the heftier machines. It just works and boots up fast. Lubuntu just isn't there because its Alpha edition can't install to the disk and is missing support for the most common wireless cards - its can't see a Broadcom 4312g card but Ubuntu does. Let's hope it gets ready by October.

gymophett

September 8th, 2009, 09:57 PM

NormanFLinux

September 8th, 2009, 09:57 PM

LXDE looks and feels like Windows. The PCLOS adaptation of it is intuitive and beautiful. I've never seen an operating system that boots up and shuts down so fast. If you haven't tried it, you should. Its remarkably light and stable and its interface is comfortable enough to work with. You can move the taskbar to the top if you're used to it in GNOME and keep it at the bottom if you come from Windows/KDE. And most packages can be installed from the repositories. The only limitation is to take care not to install the GNOME or KDE desktop libraries. Its further along than any other netbook OS and Moblin won't ship til the fall and Google's Chrome won't ship til next year.

siimo

September 8th, 2009, 10:15 PM

Win7 on the netbook is pretty good. I use it for programming and it performs extremely well even with multiple instances of Visual Studio and largish projects open.

t0p

September 8th, 2009, 11:00 PM

I've got an EeePC 701, with 512MB of RAM, a 4GB SSD and a 4GB SDHC card permanently mounted. Ubuntu runs okay; Eeebuntu works just great. So, how would Windows 7 run on this machine?

Okay, maybe I'm not playing fair with the 512MB of RAM for this question. Ubuntu does run okay, but it certainly could do with more. So I've ordered a 2GB RAM module which should arrive tomorrow hopefully. I can predict that Eeebuntu will run like a lunatic runner on meth with the 2GB of RAM installed. So how will 7 fare?

I suspect that the 4GB SSD/4GB SDHC will not be enough for 7. And that's before I've installed any apps! Pray tell me, am I wrong??

bornagainpenguin

September 9th, 2009, 03:18 AM

I have an ASUS eeepc 901 Linux. It came with the six cell battery, 1GB of RAM, and uses a pair of SSDs 4GB for OS and 16GB for docs and media. I have no swap file. I gave up on the included Xandros in less than a week in because it nearly impossible to add programs to it without breaking something.

I run Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04.3 on it using the kernel from array.org and eee-control-tray to manage my power settings and ACPI events.

This works out well for me. I get about seven hours battery life sans WiFi and with lowered backlight + powersave mode set from eee-control-tray. I get about five or four hours with the WiFi on, and this is after a year of constant use. If you want the battery life you need to get the right hardware to go with it. You need that six cell battery, you need those SSDs--it simply isn't going to happen with out them!

Sure in WinXP I can get slightly more battery life--but that's at the cost of being able to install applications. With only 4GB to work with, even after I use nLite to straighten things out a bit and reduce my install I still average three gigabytes for just Windows. I lose performance by installing antivirus software and having to deal with Windows's brain dead disk management. I've mapped my C:\Program Files\ to the other SSD before, but that costs me in document and media space, so it isn't a solution.

So that means in Ubuntu I get better performance over all.

In Windows XP I am unable to get the fonts set uniformly to something that doesn't hurt my eyes.

Ubuntu lets me set my fonts as large or as small as I like and doing so makes everything obey that setting. People are always commenting on how readable my eeepc is compared to "the ones in the stores" which are of course running Windows. It makes a HUGE difference.

Ubuntu allows me to have virtual desktops. I usually set four, 1) for Straw (my feed reader) to update when I have a WiFi connection. 2) For Banshee (my music player) or Miro (my internet video application) to play media. 3) For Swift\Firefox for my web browsing needs. and 4) For spare, usually having to do with file management in Nautilus and using my various Flash drives and SD cards.

Windows has applications that are supposed to allow this type of thing, but they all feel like bolt-ons (they are!) and never work as smoothly as using virtual desktops combined with compiz does for me.

Ubuntu just wins for me, mostly due to the fonts. I cannot force myself to squint at the tiny ones Windows insists on using all the time. I don't hate myself enough.

--bornagainpenguin

PS: Check out the Human Compact theme mentioned in my sig to see what a difference it can make in desktop space on a netbook!

fewt

September 14th, 2009, 12:58 PM

I get 10 hours out of my HE using my Eee PC Utilities (Eee PC Tray), tested during a long flight to and from CA with a layover. I watched movies non-stop each way and it never let me down. Don't trust gnome power manager, it's a useless utility that isn't ever accurate.

bornagainpenguin

September 22nd, 2009, 06:11 PM

Don't trust gnome power manager, it's a useless utility that isn't ever accurate.

I use the Gnome Battery Charge Monitor applet instead and it seems to be much more accurate, even if it isn't 100% accurate either. Give it a try and see if you find it better than power manager--if you do then just add the applet to your system tray and use ubuntu-tweak to disable the gnome power manager applet from showing on the system tray. You'll be happier if you do!

--bornagainpenguin

fewt

September 22nd, 2009, 11:43 PM

I use the Gnome Battery Charge Monitor applet instead and it seems to be much more accurate, even if it isn't 100% accurate either. Give it a try and see if you find it better than power manager--if you do then just add the applet to your system tray and use ubuntu-tweak to disable the gnome power manager applet from showing on the system tray. You'll be happier if you do!

--bornagainpenguin

Absolutely, it is a much better battery utility. When I'm working on Eee PC Utilities I just watch 'acpi -t' though. :)

handy

September 23rd, 2009, 12:57 PM

In answering the thread title I would agree; that is until the arrival of Haiku 1.0 ... Which will be fast, very fast. :)

Which is great. Linux is still there; brilliant as a server, & fantastic as a desktop.

It will just be so nice to have another kid on the block that can do some things better than Linux & offers us those options to pick up if we choose.

t0p

September 23rd, 2009, 01:49 PM

Running Eeebuntu 3 (Jaunty) on my EeePC 701. It's pretty sprightly, all the hardware works fine, but it runs rather hot and battery life is poor (a couple of hours at the most).

I recently upgraded the RAM from 512MB to 2GB, and performance has improved, but the improvement hasn't been as dramatic as I anticipated. I guess a single-core 32-bit processor like the Pentium Celeron M is never going to be particularly fast, no matter how much RAM you give it.

But it's still an excellent little computer, that can do a lot more than the "web browser and email" that many people suggest is all a netbook's good for. I hate that term "netbook" - it is largely responsible for the common misconception that such a machine is just a glorified web browser. The fact is, a netbook is as much a real computer as any desktop. It's just smaller and less powerful. But still very capable. I use my EeePC for browsing and email, sure, but also for watching videos and playing music when I'm on the train or sitting around waiting for someone; I can do a bit of in-the-field photo editing on it (but only basic stuff - the 7" screen is not ideal for graphical work!); if someone wants their wifi access point audited I can fire up my live usb of BackTrack 4 - the Atheros wireless card works great with aircrack-ng etc; I can give impromptu presentations, either on the small screen or an external monitor; and there's word-processing, usenet, pdf reader... all the usual stuff one uses a computer for.

And ubuntu is perfectly suited for all these tasks. I use Eeebuntu, because it's customized for the specific hardware, but I've also used vanilla ubuntu and netbook remix in the past without any great difficulties; and I understand that karmic will be even better suited.

What do folks do about virus protection? Do they actually browse with Windows without AV running, or do they take the performance hit to keep their netbook clean?

I'm rather surprised that no one has addressed this point. So I will do so now, just in case zakany (or anyone else interested) is looking.

Basically, if you're running Linux on a netbook (or any other kind of computer), you don't need AV software. There are virtually no Linux viruses out "in the wild", and other forms of malware are very rare. Some people use ClamAV on their Linux computers, but I can't see the point. ClamAV looks for Windows viruses on your Linux system. Since a Windows virus can't hurt my Ubuntu-running machines, I don't bother with it.

handy

September 23rd, 2009, 02:03 PM

Haiku is so fast due to its architecture, & being a dedicated desktop system as opposed to a server, desktop, notebook, netbook, system. Haiku should deliver not only its inherent higher speed, but lower power consumption & increased simplicity/reliability.

Combine that with the dedicated user interface; which really should find a good sized market niche. (It has certainly worked for Apple. I certainly know which of the two I'd rather use, & I own Apple too.)

Haiku has the potential to be the market leader in notebook/netbook computers. I think that the potential doesn't stop there, but I will. :)

SomeGuyDude

September 23rd, 2009, 02:31 PM

With display down, CPU scaled, and powertop trimming some excess, I get about 4.5 hours out of a 12-cell battery on my HP dv6000. About the same that I got with Vista.

bornagainpenguin

October 20th, 2009, 10:40 PM

Haiku has the potential to be the market leader in notebook/netbook computers.

Until Haiku gets a dedicated WiFi applet on par with NetworkManager capable of supporting the networking hardware at least as good as the one in Ubuntu now I don't see it as having legs any time soon.

Yes, I am aware that it is being worked on, I am also aware that networking was always one of BeOS' weak spots and thus Haiku (R1 intended to be BeOS R5 compatible) will not really see much improvements in that area until R2. Then there is also the issues with security. I know there probably aren't that many viruses or worms to worry about quite yet on Haiku, but as far as I can see they've replicated the half finished security settings in BeOS (supposed to be R5 compatible, remember?) but with the base assumption being for single user accounts and the user runs as admin...

Didn't we all learn from Microsoft's experiments with Windows you can't bolt on security as an afterthought?

Finally there is a distinct dearth of applications for Haiku. Since the goal was to shoot for R5 compatibility with the last official release of BeOS, newer applications are rather short on the ground and while it might be technically possible to run apps from ten years ago, practically it's a nightmare! We have moved on quite a bit in ten years don't you think? Would you really rather be stuck with Winamp 1\2.xx Netscape Communicator, StarOffice 3.xx and so on? These are the kinds of applications we're talking about--they're old!

Having said all the above, if they manage to get the WiFi down right, and entice developers to either resume coding on some of their older projects or start some new ones, and entice those various companies who had commercial software that was nearly complete to pull the old code out of storage and finish it up...

They might have a chance to really shine on netbooks!

Meanwhile Ubuntu is here, it works well and is ready now.

Guess which one I'm using?

--bornagainpenguin

Xyphoid

October 22nd, 2009, 10:51 PM

Two big reasons it shouldn't be:

Flash is crap and copying large files over wifi is still not
working.

Don't get me wrong, I really love Ubuntu, but until these two problems are fixed, I'm still logging in into XP. I just installed the Karma Koala RC, but the two problems still exists...

bornagainpenguin

October 29th, 2009, 07:50 PM

Flash works better when you use different Intel drivers or use a more recent kernel, but yeah it definitely needs some work. Personally I'm rooting for the FOSS versions of flash players to mature enough for regular use, then I fully intend to dump Adobe like the disgusting pig they are. If Adobe refuses to even try to compete, then they can get out of the way of those who are both ready and willing!

--bornagainpenguin

Twitch6000

October 29th, 2009, 08:37 PM

1: Netbook hardware is the perfect match for Linux

I find that false.. I have met tons of people who could not get it to work on the aspire one.

2: Netbooks require a secure OS

True,but any os can be secure.

3: It’s all about the interface

Not really I have seen some fugly Interfaces,but the Os worked fine.

4. Your netbook can be more than just a slow laptop

Indeed true,but most Linux distros that come on a netbook are really bloated.. (xandros comes to mind)

5. Linux will keep your cost down

This is true

6. Linux offers more flavors to choose from

Again true,but your average user normally will be happy with what comes on its netbook.

7: You’ll gain speed

Look at number 4

8. Improvements will come faster and more often

Depends on the distro. I know ubuntu speed does grow with updates,but more bugs appear aswell. Then there are rolling releases can bring problems with the updates.

9. The next version will work
False. Look at Ubuntu almost any new release causes new problems. Jaunty made it near impossible for intel and ati cards to work.

10. Support is better (believe it or not)

I concur now days on linux support forums I see LY giving info when they have no idea what they are talking about. So that leads to trying up to 10 things before you fix it.(if you do that it)