So i'm looking for netbook distros...

[themarker0]

My laptop only have 1.4ghz proccesor, so i need to get myself a small distro. I have UNR on my list of things to get, i have moblin now, it lags to much, more then XP.

Can you all suggest a few that you have used from your own expierence?

[Dharmachakra]

I had the worst performance when I tried UNR. It was a joke.

I'm running Fedora 12 on my netbook (1.6 GHz), which is better suited for Atom processors than Ubuntu is. I slimmed it down a bit and threw LXDE on it. I think there's even an LXDE spin floating around. If so, I would try that. Moblin used to be (or still is) based on Fedora, so you may not notice any difference. I can't say much... I only used Moblin for maybe an hour.

[The Toxic Mite]

Ubuntu mini.iso

Throw in X, a display manager and a window manager, some utilities, et voilà!

[Little Bones]

Xubuntu? It's pretty lightweight.

[themarker0]

I cannot stand XFCE, i've used it and i really can't stand it. Can i have a link to this Ubuntu Mini?

[michaelzap]

Give Eeebuntu a try. I'm currently running Eeebuntu 3 on my Eee 701 and it works perfectly. It is essentially a full Gnome Ubuntu installation but optimized for the Eee (and works well on other netbooks also).

Eeebuntu 4 is in beta now, and I'm really looking forward to trying that. It's not specific to Eee PCs, and it's actually based on Debian instead of Ubuntu. I expect that this will become my netbook distro of choice.

I've also used Crunchbang a lot and it works well for me (although OpenBox is a bit obtuse for new users, it's very fast). There's also an LXDE Debian CD available from the LXDE page that would probably be a good bet for slower netbooks. I also didn't think that much of UNR (slow, bloated, and personally I don't like those netbook launcher thingies - I use Gnome Do or other keyboard launchers).

[themarker0]

I guess i forgot to say, its a full laptop, just its an Acer timeline, and they have weak processors. (not atom.)

EeeBuntu certainly caught my eye, can it handle 4 gigs ram?

[michaelzap]

I guess i forgot to say, its a full laptop, just its an Acer timeline, and they have weak processors. (not atom.)

EeeBuntu certainly caught my eye, can it handle 4 gigs ram?

Hmm. With 4 GB of RAM I'd want a 64-bit OS. I'd probably just use regular 64-bit Karmic actually.

[dragos240]

Xubuntu? It's pretty lightweight.

I lol'd. Xubuntu is anything but light! Try pure debian.

[themarker0]

But with 1.4ghz, which i am told runs at half speed when not plugged in. So... :p

@Dragos240, i will add it to the list.

[cariboo]

My netbook runs an atom n270 with 1Gb ram, I've tried Moblin, UNR and Easypeasy on usb thumb drives, I was surprised how well all three versions ran on it.

I had previously tried Moblin on my atom 320 powered media center pc, and was really disappointed in the results. This time I downloaded the final version directly from Intel, and it was much better than the first time I tried it.

[themarker0]

My netbook runs an atom n270 with 1Gb ram, I've tried Moblin, UNR and Easypeasy on usb thumb drives, I was surprised how well all three versions ran on it.

I had previously tried Moblin on my atom 320 powered media center pc, and was really disappointed in the results. This time I downloaded the final version directly from Intel, and it was much better than the first time I tried it.


There are just a few things i can't deal with. The interface is dead easy, but its slowler then XP! I can't deal with that.

[jmszr]

themarker0,

You might find this of interest; it's a .pdf download of a Ubuntu User magazine comparison of netbook distros: http://ubuntu-user.com/Magazine/Archive/2010/4/BOOT-UP

[snowpine]

Themarker, this conversation is confusing; do you have a netbook or not, and what are your hardware specs? Netbook distros are optimized for certain hardware; if yours is different, that could explain the performance problems (for example Moblin recommends an Atom processor).

In my experience, most modern Linux distros are slower than Windows XP, since XP is 9 years old and requires only 64mb of ram.

My netbooks are running CentOS, Fedora 12, and Windows XP, though in the past I have also had excellent luck with plain old Ubuntu.

[themarker0]

Themarker, this conversation is confusing; do you have a netbook or not, and what are your hardware specs? Netbook distros are optimized for certain hardware; if yours is different, that could explain the performance problems (for example Moblin recommends an Atom processor).

In my experience, most modern Linux distros are slower than Windows XP, since XP is 9 years old and requires only 64mb of ram.

My netbooks are running CentOS, Fedora 12, and Windows XP, though in the past I have also had excellent luck with plain old Ubuntu.


http://www.linlap.com/wiki/acer+aspire+timeline+5810t

That is my laptop. I had talked on the moblin IRC, asking, they said it should run fine on my laptop. Also thats why i wanted a netbook one, i figured it would have similar XP requirements. My laptop is just to week for XP (Which i have running bugged a little). Moblin VIA a usb key was amazing, once i installed it was not so amazing though :(.

I will try the Fedora, i was getting good reviews with it. I have avoided CentOS for servers, i guess its time for me to give it a try.

Thank you all for you input.

@Jmszr, I have a similar one from Linux Pro magazine. I will look between the two, see which comes up more then once. :)

I just like personal use then reviews. Usually personal users use it longer then a reveiwer does, so they see the ups, and downs.

Thank you again :)

[Grifulkin]

Arch + LXDE on mine, it is very fast and better on battery life than XP.

[themarker0]

Arch + LXDE on mine, it is very fast and better on battery life than XP.


Arch uses Rolling releases correct? I'm not a fan of the idea tbh... But i shall add it to the list.

[bowbalitic]

If your willing to work for it Gentoo... (room goes quiet, everyone stares)

But in all reality, for a system like that it would pry be best. But like I said, you will have to work for it, I'm currently trying to build it on my latitude 9100 10" with touch screen. Some people think grey hairs, lack of sleep, carpel tunnel are sexy, especially if you get them all from trying to properly configure Gentoo :P

[themarker0]

Arch + LXDE on mine, it is very fast and better on battery life than XP.


If your willing to work for it Gentoo... (room goes quiet, everyone stares)

But in all reality, for a system like that it would pry be best. But like I said, you will have to work for it, I'm currently trying to build it on my latitude 9100 10" with touch screen. Some people think grey hairs, lack of sleep, carpel tunnel are sexy, especially if you get them all from trying to properly configure Gentoo :P


I would love to try, but i can't find an X32 version of Gentoo.

[bowbalitic]

From what I'm reading with the atom, people are just going with the x86

This
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Acer_Aspire_One_A110L
Might help you.

[Ozitraveller]

Try this and build it any way you like.

HowTo Achieve "Ubuntu-Desktop-Minimal"
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1155961

[Twitch6000]

The opensuse moblin remix would be cool.

Another one could be linpus.

[earthpigg]

I think there's even an LXDE spin floating around. If so, I would try that.

my netbook, and my dissatisfaction with UNR, etc, being similar to that expressed in the OP, is why i created masonux :P

[themarker0]

From what I'm reading with the atom, people are just going with the x86

This
http://en.gentoo-wiki.com/wiki/Acer_Aspire_One_A110L
Might help you.

It will, thank you :)


Try this and build it any way you like.

HowTo Achieve "Ubuntu-Desktop-Minimal"
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1155961

I will also try this. I want to stay away from full distros though, to many things i can install..


The opensuse moblin remix would be cool.

Another one could be linpus.

I will try both many thanks.


my netbook, and my dissatisfaction with UNR, etc, being similar to that expressed in the OP, is why i created masonux :P
I shall try this one first :)

[earthpigg]

I shall try this one first :)

cool. take note in my website where i refer to masonux 9.10 as beta quality and note on the 'release notes page' that


If the "Just Works" aspect is important to you, you probably want to use Masonux 9.04.

[Small_Nuke]

my netbook, and my dissatisfaction with UNR, etc, being similar to that expressed in the OP, is why i created masonux :P

I think I'm going to give your distro a try. I've been looking for a distro that is suited for my AAO-D150 for a while now and I'm just not satisfied with anything I've tried yet. UNR was the biggest upset I tried because it was somehow worse than a standard install of Ubuntu on the same PC.

I'm downloading the 9.04 .iso as I type this post.

Will try this tonight, and will post with how it goes.

[Small_Nuke]

Well it ran ok. It didn't have any problems finding my all of my hardware. It was very minimal; I mean seriously if there was more missing I might as well just be using HAIKU or something (not that I would use an OS with that many bugs =P).

First time using LXDE and it was ok. I didn't like the clock setting (20:00), and when I went to change it the setting were in %r %5 gibberish. It seemed to run ok, but the the windows were a little glitchy when first openned (like it rendered the window in sections instead of just 'pop'). I also tried to install ubuntu-restricted-extras and apt couldn't find it. So I tried install Flash from the .deb file from Adobe and it kept giving me a errer saying it couldn't find 'ar' or something.

Overall, I think I'll just wait for regular Ubuntu 10.04 and see how it runs. My 10 inch screen can handle a regular desktop, and I put 2gigs of ram in it so the only thing holding my netbook back is the integrated graphics and the atom processer.

I didn't install it. So this is all from a live session from a usb drive I setup using Unetbootin.

[earthpigg]

I also tried to install ubuntu-restricted-extras and apt couldn't find it.

post the output of sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras?

[Small_Nuke]

post the output of sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras?

This is a copy paste from the terminal (I'm posting while on Masonux):

To run a command as administrator (user "root"), use "sudo <command>".
See "man sudo_root" for details.

masonux@masonux:~$ sudo apt-get install ubuntu-restricted-extras
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
E: Couldn't find package ubuntu-restricted-extras
masonux@masonux:~$

//end

That's what happens. Anyways I'll probably install Ubuntu 9.1 later today. I want to try AWN and a Mac theme just for some fun while I install WoW on my gaming machine.

[aklo]

Is it really that bad? I own an acer aspire a101 netbook and winxp is so slow and ubuntu netbook edition works great on it.

Also what are you trying to do on your netbook? If you are viewing (non hd) video and music/internet ubuntu netbook edition should work GREAT. Afterall netbook is not suppose to do any heavy duty task.

Xubuntu is also good not sure why you can't stand it...the interface is almost the same as a desktop edition ubuntu except for the colors and there is no fancy wobbly window.

[Small_Nuke]

Ok, well I'm not going to watch this thread anymore. Hope you the best Earthpigg.

[armageddon08]

Try Jolicloud.

[uRock]

My laptop only have 1.4ghz proccesor, so i need to get myself a small distro. I have UNR on my list of things to get, i have moblin now, it lags to much, more then XP.

Can you all suggest a few that you have used from your own expierence?

I just got my Asus Netbook, shrunk the partition and installed Ubuntu 9.10 on it. It is running great. I must say I like the XP on it because you can zoom in and out the way you do on an iPhone. As far as speed is concerned, Ubuntu is slower than XP on the Netbook. My Netbook has the dual core 1.6 gig Intel Atom.

[BigSilly]

What would you recommend for the old Asus Eee 701 with 4Gb? It's only got a Celeron processor, but there must be an ideal distro out there. We're currently using UNR 9.10, which is frankly perfect bar being not a bit slow and not really tailored to this particular netbook. I've recently tried Puppy 4.3, which again would be great, but the system runs as root all the time (fixable I suppose), and they don't provide security updates.

Is it likely that UNR 10.04 will be even better on the 701, or is it more likely that it'll get left behind now by the Ubuntu teams? Thanks all.

[snowpine]

What would you recommend for the old Asus Eee 701 with 4Gb? It's only got a Celeron processor, but there must be an ideal distro out there. We're currently using UNR 9.10, which is frankly perfect bar being not a bit slow and not really tailored to this particular netbook. I've recently tried Puppy 4.3, which again would be great, but the system runs as root all the time (fixable I suppose), and they don't provide security updates.

Is it likely that UNR 10.04 will be even better on the 701, or is it more likely that it'll get left behind now by the Ubuntu teams? Thanks all.

If UNR is running "perfectly" I would not recommend messing up your install.

If you had to start from scratch for whatever reason, I would definitely recommend at least trying SliTaz. Since a full install only takes about 100mb, I think it would be perfect for a 4gb drive.

[BigSilly]

Thanks for that. I'll look into it. Looks good.

UNR is indeed running really well. Everything works, but my main issue is that it can be really sluggish at times. Sluggish is not a word I like to associate with any Linux, so I'm looking for good alternatives for this sort of hardware. :)

[michaelzap]

Thanks for that. I'll look into it. Looks good.

UNR is indeed running really well. Everything works, but my main issue is that it can be really sluggish at times. Sluggish is not a word I like to associate with any Linux, so I'm looking for good alternatives for this sort of hardware. :)

I'm currently running Eeebuntu 3 on my 701, and it works perfectly. I've also been very happy with Crunchbang on this machine. But as soon as I have some free time I'm going to try the new Eeebuntu 4 beta, which is based on Debian and therefore probably a whole lot snappier.

[uRock]

I am looking into installing OpenSolaris on my Asus after seeing the it works well and has higher benchmark ratings.