Update on my Netbook

My friend, Amy, asked me how I like my new netbook (ASUS Eee PC 901). I've been writing about it to a few people, so I thought I blog it for posterity...

I got mine in early July 2009. I played around with it, but didn't really use it much (not a lot of wi-fi in Arkport). I got a great deal ($169) on a lower-end model that seemed to meet my low-end needs. I did some common upgrades (upping RAM from 1G to 2G and replacing slow 4G Solid-State-Disk with faster 16G SSD) and was content.

As a low-cost netbook, mine came with Linux (no biggie, I like UNIX variants). I replaced the so-so stock Linux install with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (better formatted for small screens). I started using it. Fun, quick, no probs. Life was good, and it was great to have a command line again.

Then my old, slow laptop died. I'd been using it as my office PC. When it went, I needed to put the netbook into service fast. Ubuntu gave me a few hassles here, some I've experienced before with Linux, others were new. I needed to add the fonts I use in my church publications. No biggie, I've added fonts to UNIX systems before. I even found clear and helpful instructions on the Internet. The only problem? They didn't work. Grrr...

I also need to print at work, and printing is (in my 15+ yrs experience) the Achilles Heel of Linux. I'm sure others know how to make it work and have no issues. I've NEVER been able to get a Linux/*BSD/Solaris machine to print successfully. Call me dumb.

So, this week I jumped ship and installed the Windows 7 Release Candidate on it. I've been testing Win 7 on my home PC since last year and like it a lot. I wasn't sure if the netbook could handle it, but Microsoft is specifically targeting the netbook market (the only PC market to have any real positive sale this year). Once I made a bootable Windows 7 USB thumb drive, I was off to the races. Installation was a snap, hardware recognized without a hitch.

Speed is great. The laptop I was formerly using was a Sony VAIO from the year 2000. It had a Celeron 600 CPU and 256M of RAM. I was running Windows 2000 Pro on it and it was OK, but sluggish, especially loading programs. The netbook is like a Ferrari compare to it (though just about anything would be!). I've yet to experience even a hiccup.

I am conscious about hard drive space. I've got a 16GB SSD in it, Win 7 takes up under 6G of that. I also have a 4G SD card to store stuff like music files. It's really no biggie, I keep all my working documents on a thumb drive. My media-intensive files (images, movies, music) mainly live on my home PC, with it's whopping 80G hard drive. I'm not anticipating a problem with the 16G capacity of the netbook (though I can get a 32G or 46G SSD for it, if I do).

So far, so fun!!