Machine - Acer Aspire One - model no. KAV10. NB - this is a netbook w/ no cd/dvd drive. I have an SD slot and can make use of an external USB hard drive if necessary.

Me - no expert, but reasonably experienced and confident w/ Mac and Windoze.

System requirements - internet research (via 2-Wire Gateway - 2700 HG-E2 with wireless disabled); writing (currently use and like Wordpad); store and view photos; download, store and play music.
That's it.
I am a conservative computer user, I avoid new software as much as possible and like to keep my machine clean and simple. Generally speaking I go for simple and classic--if it ain't broke...

Unless this board convinces me otherwise I have settled on Ubuntu.
All files on my machine will be backed up and I will be happy to format my hard drive (it currently has 100+GB free space). I want Micros*** gone out of my life forever.

Any advice is welcome as I am a total Linux newb.
Specific questions -

Can I download an ISO onto an SD card and work from there?

What is the best approach to completely eliminate every trace of XP from my drive? (This is personal ) Do I install Ubuntu and nuke Micros*** from there? What is the best approach if I want to format my hard drive?

Are there any common problems/hurdles to watch out for?

All advice appreciated,
drT

I use Ubuntu. It's not quite as customizable as several other distros, but I find that no matter which other ones I take for a spin, I end up inevitably coming back to Ubuntu. And not because of problems; for some reason I just get more out of Ubuntu than the others. But my requirements are very similar to yours (I can't code or anything like that anyway).

It would probably be better to use a USB drive. Go here for that:
http://www.ubuntu.com/GetUbuntu/download-netbook

Ubuntu has a great partitioner. Unfortunately I don't yet know anything about partitioning, but if you throw it into Google I'm sure you'll find a good how-to.

I encourage you to at least think about saving a little bit of space for XP. Only because when I loaded Linux onto my laptop, I wanted to be completely free of MS's proprietary crap too, but in retrospect, it would have been nice to have a small XP partition to play with. Just in case. Other than that I have never looked back.

I would just make sure Ubuntu is detecting all of your hardware properly before you install it. Usually they are very good about having drivers for all the essentials (e.g., wireless cards) but try to load up the live version first and make sure.

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Hello drTronic,

Since you're new at Linux I advise you to take the easy way. By the look of the icon below your name you're using Windows to post, meaning that you can use that to prepare a USB stick. Have a look at unetbootin. Download it and run it. It allows you to directly download a lot of distros including Ubuntu and install them to the USB stick. If your Acer One allows booting from USB (which I'm almost sure it does) then boot from the USB stick and install from there onto the netbook.

You might have a look at the Ubuntu netbook remix, which is especially configured for those machines. I've seen an older type Acer One (one of the first that came out) with the fullblown Ubuntu installed and in my opinion it was pretty slow.

So if the netbook remix is slow too, you might want to give Xubuntu a go. That's Ubuntu with xfce desktop instead of the standard Gnome. xfce is a lot faster than Gnome and also comes with a lot of applications standard. I installed yesterday Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu on one laptop, and the differences in speed are tremendeous. So I definitely advice you to take a look at it.

Kind regards,

Eric

1 members found this post helpful.

Thanks for your input guys, you got me off to a flying start. I was literally up all night like a kid at xmas..
I didn't want to wait to go buy a USB stick so I decided to try out my 2Gb SD card..

EricTRA, I followed your advice and downloaded unetbootin and Xubuntu 9.1.
I pointed unetbootin at the ISO and the SD card and after a short wait I had myself a bootable disk. I restarted XPee, hit F2 to enter setup, moved the SD card to the top of the boot disk list and Xubuntu booted up just fine. Perhaps a little slow to load but I am running an OS off a 1 inch square of plastic!!

At first I was a little mystified by the xfce desktop as I operate my machine w/out mouse or touchpad and it took me a little time to locate documentation for keyboard shortcuts - I am still not 100% with non-mouse accessibility and may yet check out Gnome/Ubuntu from that point of view (eg I have yet to find a way to tab through the panel icons), but that's for another thread.

My netbook has 1gb of memory and a 1.6ghz processor and it seems Xubuntu is made for way less than that. Is that enough for Ubuntu?

As far as the technical side of getting Xubuntu up and running I have been impressed with the ease and smoothness of the whole operation. I now feel confident to try some different setups although I very much like the xfce interface.

@ FIGator81 - that's very forgiving of you to keep a partition for XP, personally I will take great pleasure in eliminating it from my life, slowly, bit by bit.. My girlfriend's Vaio running Vista will be the next target

I was prepared for a bit of a rough ride.. looks this thread will be shorter than I expected
Any tips for when it comes to XPee elimination time?

Yours kindly,
drT

Hi drT,

Great you got it running, it's always very pleasant if it works on the first run (believe me it's more likely not to). I don't know the XPee but can't you connect a USB mouse to it? If so that should take care of your 'mouseless' operational problems.

What exactly do you mean with XPee elimination time? You can always hit it with a sledge hammer, that would eliminate it (just kidding, don't take me up on that advice).

Kind regards,

Eric

By XPee elimination time I mean when I come to remove all traces of Microsoft from my computer and let it be the Linux machine it wants to be.. (XPee is my juvenile nickname for XP )

It seems my touchpad died just a few months after I bought this netbook - I had thought it was a Windows/virus problem, but it hasn't come back to life with Xubuntu so I guess it really is dead.. I started out on AppleMacs way back in the day and I've always used lots of keyboard shortcuts, so I'm kind of enjoying it. Also, I live in a very rural area away from shops and such

drT

Oh, OK, got you, I thought it was a netbook model I never heard of

Well, XPee elimination time equals the time you need to install Linux, eliminating all partitions. That simple. I envy you, sometimes I wish I lived in a rural area.

Kind regards,

Eric

I'll play around with some other live installs know I know this one is working..
I'm a big city boy by birth, but these days the countryside is rocking my world - instead of crackheads outside my house I have giant trees and ferns and raccoons and my dog sleeps outside under the stars... I'd recommend it to most anyone
Goodnight and see you again,
drT

Yeah, rub it in

Have a good one.

Kind regards,

Eric