Which netbook supports alternative distro out of the box?

paulsiu · 11-22-2008, 11:58 AM

Hi,

I have been thinking about getting a netbook recently. I plan to do some simple web surfacing, PDF viewing, multimedia playback, and some light programming.

Because I tend to be more of a power user, I don't think a light weight distro like Xandros or Linpus is going to serve my needs, so was wondering which netbook will handle a major distro out of the box. I am not particularly picky about which distro, as long as it supports all of the hardware out of box including wireless and can suspend/resume properly.

Unfortunately, I dislike the two machine that does have a decent distro. The Dell netbook has a strange keyboard layout even though it uses Ubuntu. The HP laptop is slow and too expensive.

I was thinking of something like Asus eee 904ha or the Acer Aspire One with the extended battery.

Paul

Randux · 11-22-2008, 12:53 PM

Most laptops can run almost anything nowadays. If you want to check burn a live cd and take it to the shop and see if it will boot and run.

paulsiu · 11-22-2008, 02:24 PM

Randux,

That is not my experience. I ran different distro over the years, but always run into problems with laptops. Something almost always fails, it's usually the wireless or the suspend to ram / suspend to disk.

I can't really bring a live distro to a store either, most netbooks don't have optical drives.

Hangdog42 · 11-22-2008, 03:04 PM

Quote:

I can't really bring a live distro to a store either, most netbooks don't have optical drives.

But you don't need an optical drive if you can get a distro on a USB stick. For example, I've got a 1GB stick with Ubuntu on it. It boots my Mini9 nicely and runs just like a live CD.

You are right that the Dell keyboard is a little goofy, but I'm finding that after a couple of days of use, it is largely fine. My biggest problems with it is that the right Shift key is small and right next to the up arrow key. In consoles I keep scrolling to the previous command instead of getting a capital letter. The other odd one is the placement of the apostrophe key. Still haven't quite got the hang of that one yet.

Randux · 11-23-2008, 01:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paulsiu

Randux,

That is not my experience. I ran different distro over the years, but always run into problems with laptops. Something almost always fails, it's usually the wireless or the suspend to ram / suspend to disk.

I can't really bring a live distro to a store either, most netbooks don't have optical drives.

That's odd, I never had problems running Slackware on laptops

I would not be willing to buy any machine unless they let me boot a few discs on it.

johnson_steve · 11-23-2008, 02:17 PM

there's eeeXubuntu.

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ubuntu:eeexubuntu:home

a custom version of the Xubuntu with fully-integrated hardware support, including native wireless drivers, functioning Ethernet support, tweaks for low-resolution desktop environments, and other miscellaneous fixes.

that said with a little work just about anything will run on anything. I'll be buying the aspire one soon (the winXP version that is $20 more and has double the ram.) I'll be installing gentoo on it. I'm sure I'll get it to work.

redbook · 11-24-2008, 01:51 PM

I can't believe we're going thru it again, a netbook is essentially a mini laptop. It will run any distro, some with tweaking some without. Mandriva runs on most fine. Ubuntu usually needs a bit of tweaking for the wireless. Fedora 10 looks like it will be brilliant. I'm afraid as always its a case of suck it and see then choose the one you like best.

farslayer · 11-24-2008, 02:12 PM

If you search around you will find a lot of HOW-To's for the netbooks with Various Distributions.. which will help give you an idea about any compatibility issues you may have,.. for instance here are the ones I have found for the Acer AspireOne.

http://wiki.debian.org/DebianAcerOne
http://www.thev.net/cgi-bin/awki.cgi...amp=1222950371 < - slackware 12.1
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Acer_Aspire_One
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HARDWARE_Acer_Aspire_One_A110L
http://en.opensuse.org/OpenSUSE_on_the_Aspire_One
http://www.foresightlinux.org/mobile.html
Mandriva 2009
Mandriva has also announced (released ?) Mandriva Mini which is specialized for netbooks.

I purchased the Acer Aspire One,and loaded Debian on it the same night I brought it home..

I should mention I have everything working in Debian
Sound, Video, Wireless with WPA2, Touchpad, Ethernet, etc..
I had to use a Daily build of the Lenny netinstall to accomplish that though, So I can understand your concerns over hardware.

A quick search in this forum would have turned up these links which I have posted in numerous threads.. There are other links as well posted by other people.. so you may still want to do that search.

donec · 02-20-2009, 01:45 PM

I am running Mandriva 2009 Gnome and the only things that needed modifying is...

Quote:

Add the following lines to my /etc/modprobe.conf

#following line is to make the chassi speakers turn off when the head set is connected.
options snd-hda-intel model=acer-aspire

Add the following lines to /etc/rc.d/rc.local

#following line is to help the card reader read the card when inserted.
/sbin/modprobe pciehp pciehp_force=1

The # makes the line following it to be just a comment.

One note if you use an SDHC card you will not be able to get suspend to work reliably. On the other hand I don't use the command line and the upgrades never break the system.