NBR - Linux vs Windows...

[Jman]

First off if this isn't the right place to put this I apologize in advance. Now on to the question...

I am in the market for a small back-up laptop as I am getting ready to start school soon. My main laptop has sort of become my only computer and I would hate to get it stolen or do some sort of damage to it. I have been eyeing the EeePc mini laptop and the Sylvania mini-laptop. The problem is they both run Linux (they have windows versions but they cost nearly $100 to $150 bux more). I have three questions, does anyone have any experience with these solid-state laptops and does anyone have any experience with Linux vs Windows? Finally, if I were to go with Linux how well does an open source word processor work with Word as I'd have to transport back and forth? I know this is a bike forum but there are a lot of smart computer guys on here and frankly I trust your opinions. I'm looking to keep the price down to $300ish (I'll have to save for it a bit due to other financial issues) and I realy only want it so I can word process and have some internet capabilities around town. The major work will be done on the mainlap top at home. Thanks in advance for any help you guys/gals might be able to offer.

[klutter]

I've no experience with either laptops, but I'm currently running ubuntu for the interim period.

Download a copy of Ubuntu (the flavor of linux on the eeepc). You can run a live cd off your current machine and get an idea of what to expect. (Keep in mind, you will be running of a cd, so performance will suffer. So don't hold that against the distro.)

[mtbmichael]

open office is the office suite that is for linux. it can save documents in .doc format, but not .xdoc (office 2007). compatibility should not be an issue. the spread sheet program is similar to excel, but it does not have a lot of advance features such as pivot tables so that may be a problem.

im assuming your'e looking at the Eee pc 900. Eee pc 1000 is more expensive, but it is faster too and im not sure if they sell it in the us yet. theres also another popular UMPC called the MSI Wind, not sure of the price, but it's pretty popular in asia.

[Jman]

I've only heard of 'open source' a few times and my understanding is that its a program that's left open for other programmers to work with and fit into their programs? Am I off?

Yes I believe its the EeePC 900. It's a bit tough to find the cheaper ones but CompUSA.com seems to have them. I'm not super big on excel I use it to create some reports at work, I probably don't even tap into an eighth of its potential so I'm not to worried.

I know there are some Acer laptops that are available for roughly the price I'm looking into but these EeePC's are supposed to be pretty tough, compact and light. I'm open to other ideas if anyone has one. Thanks.

[bikeadict]

I have a compaq evo n410C I decided to jump right in to linux and installed Ubuntu as a fresh install (I figured I could always reinstall windows later). Well the install went smoothly, I installed off of a memory stick (since there is no built in CD drive). Everything worked well at first, I installed open office on there and it played all of my media well. However, I encountered a sticking point which I could not fix with my novice linux skills. I could not get wireless to work, I tried with the built in wireless and a pc card wireless adapter. neither worked. I tried a few work arounds and come coding but to no avail.

I tried reinstalling windows and it has not worked using any of my discs and an external dvd drive.

So I've now purchased a new laptop with vista and I'm pretty happy with it. However, that linux laptop just sits around now collecting dust (since wireless is a pretty big deal).

I know people have gotten wirless to work on this exact laptop with the same exact version of Ubuntu I guess I'm just not as good as them.

In anycase thats been my experience with linux

[LBmtb]

I put ubuntu on my ex's computer and she ran it for over a year without complaining, so that says something. Power management isn't too great for linux on laptops, at least when I was a linux user a couple years ago (100% macs now) - they might have gotten better since then.

[el_d00der1n0]

eeepc is xandros not ubuntu. it does use the debian package management apparently. i've never used xandros, but i understand it's a great distribution for soon-to-be-former windows users.

even with the os they put on there, you can change it, but not without some difficulty as there's no cd drive...

i listen to several linux and oss podcasts, and i've heard many reviews on the eeepc, and they've all been favorable. the thing i've heard you need to do first is get rid of the swap. the eeepc uses flash which will degrade quickly from all of the i/o going on in the swap. it's better to get the one with more memory, or max the memory out.

i've been running linux for about 10 years off and on now, and i love it. there's no hunt for software and little worry about viruses or malware. almost everything you need comes in the distribution. with windoze, you can spend a couple of hours just installing the os which comes with almost nothing. 2 hours of installation with linux gets you open office, the gimp, firefox, etc.

getting linux working well on a laptop is often not simple. i've fought with my broadcom wireless a lot. if you have a desktop machine lying around, throw the ubuntu live cd in it and give it a whirl. most likely, all of your hardware will be supported on the desktop.

of course, with the eeepc, you don't have to worry about all of that because it is designed to run linux and avoids the need for proprietary drivers.

oh, but it's tiny... is that ok?

[klutter]

Originally Posted by el_d00der1n0

eeepc is xandros not ubuntu

Thanks for the correction.

[Liquid55]

I've ran a dual boot with Fedora 8 and had no problems except MLB.TV Mosaic won't run on it. So I got rid of it and just kept windows, my Indians games are more important than an OS.

[Jman]

The fact that its small is what I'm going for as it would be a 'travel' laptop designed to be easy to pull out and do a bit of homework and if possible a bit of web surfing in between class or before I head in to work.

Okay, now I'm a computer dumb ass so what's a 'swap' that may degrade with a flash drive. Is this a long term thing or is something I'll have to deal with in say a year?

You guys are great btw, thanks for the quick responses and the information, I really appreciate it.

[el_d00der1n0]

Originally Posted by Jman

The fact that its small is what I'm going for as it would be a 'travel' laptop designed to be easy to pull out and do a bit of homework and if possible a bit of web surfing in between class or before I head in to work.

Okay, now I'm a computer dumb ass so what's a 'swap' that may degrade with a flash drive. Is this a long term thing or is something I'll have to deal with in say a year?

You guys are great btw, thanks for the quick responses and the information, I really appreciate it.

swap is a partition on the storage that is used to cache what is not actively being used in memory if the memory isn't enough to handle what you're doing. windows systems have a pagefile system that does the same thing.

the problem is flash isn't good for doing a lot of writing and rewriting. i don't know how soon it will become a problem...

[Jman]

Would it still be a problem if you end up using some other means to store the majority of work and simply used the laptop to run the programs? Most of my stuff would be saved on some sort of memory card to swap to my laptop, desktop or some other device for...say printing? This is why I don't care if the HD is only 2gigs...I'm not looking to store anything on it really.

[el_d00der1n0]

just make sure you max the memory out. it should be ok as long as you're not doing much. storage isn't the issue here dude.

[mtbmichael]

Originally Posted by Jman

but these EeePC's are supposed to be pretty tough, compact and light. I'm open to other ideas if anyone has one. Thanks.

i dont have the Eee PC, but i do have the Asus W7j and my cousin has the W3j and both have pretty good build quality. stiff keyboards, solid screen hinges, good layout of usb ports and other inputs.

their hardware quality doesnt seem to be as good as the look or feel though. ive had the w7j for 2 years now and so far ive gone through 3 hard drives and 2 motherboards. the w3j is 3 years old and has gone through 2 cd drives. i must note that none of the laptops were overclocked or continually stressed. they were however "played" with: undervolt, underclocked, osx on pc and some other stuff.

not sure of the Eee pc but both the w7j and w3j were taiwanese models (not sure if that matters) and came with a 2 year international warranty so everything was fixed, no questions asked.

[Diamondback]

If this is to be your ONLY computer, stick with Windows.
I like Linux but I have it installed on an old Hp now. My main computer I did a dual boot w/ XP and Vista and its stable.
I wouldn't do Linux on a computer that will be your main squeeze, its almost like Apple was for me in the early 90's.
It was a decent computer but programs were few and I hated "Clarisworks"