FA+
Shop
Netbook deciding time
14 years ago
Mere words follow
Erf...well...I'm probably going to University. Yay, whoo.
I've always wanted a netbook. I like cheap, and extremely novel items. While a netbook is hardly a novel item anymore, when I saw the Asus Eee PC 701SD in Officeworks many years ago, I couldn't help but awe over it. It was extremely novel to me. A laptop the size of, well, a novel!
Now things have really taken off, and everyone's caught onto the craze. HP, Acer, Toshiba, and even MSI are making netbooks, which does leave me with a lot of choice.
What makes the choice much more difficult are twofold. Firstly, not all netbooks are made equal. While all the basic specs are the same (Intel Atom, 1GB RAM, 7 Starter), the internals and the actual build quality between brands and netbooks differ vastly. I need something that's a little...durable or something.
Secondly, I plan to strip Windows 7 off it and replace it with a netbook-specific linux distro (most likely Debian-based). Wifi adapters, graphics controllers, bluetooth adapters, sound, LAN, ports, all of that, need to be pretty standard and based on open components that have 100% Linux support. I know first hand the hassle of getting a piece of hardware that isn't properly working to work on Linux (fucking brightness control...how many commands did I have to bash into a console before it worked again?). Of utmost importance is that the Wifi works. If I have to install NDISwrapper to use the Wifi, it's going straight back to the shop where it came from.
Thirdly, as I am a student, the price of this netbook cannot exceed $500. Something with decent battery life, don't care what the screen's like, or the processor (as long as it isn't a Celeron D), or the Hard Disk space is like (I can always buy a new one if I need to). There are netbooks out there which are in the 4 figure territory (*cough*VAIO*cough*).
In Summary:
*It needs to be built well
*EVERYTHING on the laptop needs to work with Linux
*Cannot exceed $500
The 2nd point is hard to ensure, as most reviews won't actually cover anything about the Wifi or Bluetooth, other than "It works".
This post is supposed to be more directed to other furries out there who have netbooks and might be able to help me decide what the best one to get is.
I'm so sorry if this is all written in broken and hard to make out English, my head hurts and I'm still hurting over something that I learned about last night. If anyone wants to help, please leave a comment below.
Thanks <3
--Haruka
I've always wanted a netbook. I like cheap, and extremely novel items. While a netbook is hardly a novel item anymore, when I saw the Asus Eee PC 701SD in Officeworks many years ago, I couldn't help but awe over it. It was extremely novel to me. A laptop the size of, well, a novel!
Now things have really taken off, and everyone's caught onto the craze. HP, Acer, Toshiba, and even MSI are making netbooks, which does leave me with a lot of choice.
What makes the choice much more difficult are twofold. Firstly, not all netbooks are made equal. While all the basic specs are the same (Intel Atom, 1GB RAM, 7 Starter), the internals and the actual build quality between brands and netbooks differ vastly. I need something that's a little...durable or something.
Secondly, I plan to strip Windows 7 off it and replace it with a netbook-specific linux distro (most likely Debian-based). Wifi adapters, graphics controllers, bluetooth adapters, sound, LAN, ports, all of that, need to be pretty standard and based on open components that have 100% Linux support. I know first hand the hassle of getting a piece of hardware that isn't properly working to work on Linux (fucking brightness control...how many commands did I have to bash into a console before it worked again?). Of utmost importance is that the Wifi works. If I have to install NDISwrapper to use the Wifi, it's going straight back to the shop where it came from.
Thirdly, as I am a student, the price of this netbook cannot exceed $500. Something with decent battery life, don't care what the screen's like, or the processor (as long as it isn't a Celeron D), or the Hard Disk space is like (I can always buy a new one if I need to). There are netbooks out there which are in the 4 figure territory (*cough*VAIO*cough*).
In Summary:
*It needs to be built well
*EVERYTHING on the laptop needs to work with Linux
*Cannot exceed $500
The 2nd point is hard to ensure, as most reviews won't actually cover anything about the Wifi or Bluetooth, other than "It works".
This post is supposed to be more directed to other furries out there who have netbooks and might be able to help me decide what the best one to get is.
I'm so sorry if this is all written in broken and hard to make out English, my head hurts and I'm still hurting over something that I learned about last night. If anyone wants to help, please leave a comment below.
Thanks <3
--Haruka
I say this from experience.