Before I get into the title, let me present my dilemma.

I'm currently looking for a netbook. Here're the two netbooks that I think are quite good.

1.Toshiba-NB505-N508BL-10-1-Inch-Netbook-Blue
2. Acer-AO722-0473-11-6-Inch-Netbook-Espresso

I'm actually going to go with the Acer since it has a slightly bigger screen, much better resolution and better performance compared to the Toshiba, but what worries me that I might have deadlock to get the Acer's AMD APU to work with linux since I heard that the APUs are not that compatible with linux in general. And since I use slackware, I think this section is the correct place to post my problem here.

Any advice will be appreciated. I would really like to hear from the owners of these two netbooks about how they work with linux.

Here's some info on AMD's APU on Linux. Phoronix favors AMD.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...3850_cpu&num=1
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...mparison&num=1
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...ion_e350&num=1

I have a Google CR-48 which has similar specs to the Toshiba you linked to (N455 Atom, 2GiB DDR3, 16GiB SSD, 12.1"), runs Slackware quite well. (Slackware actually runs better in every aspect compared to Chrome OS). Handles KDE4 with desktop effects just fine.

The C-60 in the Acer should be on par with same class Atoms. That is, an N570 will be faster than the C-60, but the C-60 should compare well to the N45x series. The GPU in C-60 (on paper) blows away the anemic Pinetrail.

The on-chip Radeon 6x00 series GPUs should be supported in the open source drivers if you rebuild the Mesa packages for Gallium3D. Mesa-7.11 or later must be rebuilt to support the Gallium drivers and you will be required to install the LLVM compiler package from Slackbuilds to support it as it is a dependency used exclusively by the Radeon drivers.

Here's the SlackBuild script I published a while back for full Gallium3D support as well as complete Mesa/OpenGL support for all extensions and libraries:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...ckware-907245/

The SlackBuild should also be compatible with mesa-7.11.1 (bugfix release) with minor edits.

Note: You may want to grab the latest Kernel as well to ensure you have proper kernel-level driver support. Kernel-3.1.2 is the latest kernel out at this time from kernel.org.

Also, if necessary, make sure you have the latest GIT of the kernel-firmware if at all possible because you will be required to have firmware support for the Radeon 6x00 series. The firmware included with Slackware should be up to date with the 6x00 series of Radeons.

Here's a suggestion, if you can at least get the VESA driver to work, getting the DRI and Mesa drivers to work shouldn't be any more difficult.

I went to find that c50 platform(which is similar to c60) has some bugs with linux?

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ux/+bug/767975

Apparently,the suspend+hibernate feature is not quite working.

When shopping for linux support, I spend more attention to wifi. I despise Broadcom.

I don't really agree with your statement; If your wifi does not work, you can just get another usb wifi adapter. I admit it's a bit of inconvenience, but that's about it. While if your gpu(apu for my case) does not work, the only solution is to get another unit, which rendered my unit useless.

I agree, that's what I do. Most include broadcom integrated wifi, so I just disable it and buy a good usb one (I prefer realtek).

I do a bit of traveling and already have too many bits of tech to keep track of. I spend my money with vendors that have Linux support. If we all did that, instead of a work around, they compatibility issues would be nil, and we would be in the Decade of the Linux Desktop. This goes also for CPU, GPU, APU, and chipsets. Its easy enough to bring hit up the brick and mortar stores with slackware on a USB stick to verify support.

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Usually the vendors I know without a doubt have Linux compatible units are Acer, HP, ASUS, MSI, and Lenovo.

The rest are either hit or miss.

If I can get a Gentoo Live disk to boot on these systems without crying for a driver I'm good to go.