Prospective newbie........Asus eeepc with linux
 

Hi all,

I am seriously considering buying a solid state Asus Laptop that comes with a Linux distro on it and my questions are simple, comming from an XP background and more bourne out of the unknown. I have read many posts here so far and it does seem a little daunting regarding the jargon used....... I´m sure its just a matter of knowing how to translate it all into what I know.

I use the laptop mainly on stage for my backing trax so reliability is important and a decent media player equally, I´m assuming there is something in the distro to play my backing tracks? (mp3 format)

As i wish to use the same machine for home internet use, as I keep my main studio computer totally off the net, am I likely to struggly in any way? I´m thinking specifically of browser plugins that are sometimes required for day to day use. I use a sniping app for ebay, how do i use that or do I need to find a linux version of all my fave small apps.


I have used Open office for some years now and the gimp for foto manipulation, so I´m not a complete stranger to open source apps, but they were quite easy to install. In the past I also played with a partition with linux, but installing drivers for all my stuff seemed like too much hard work with tar balls and all sorts of stuff that seemed strange and laborious to plough through-- I´m interested again as I am assuming this computer will be factory set up and all of those hardware issues not of any concern to me.

I appreciate any response and hope you will help me take the plunge into the world of linux and away from the other side where each day seems more about security than use.

The eeePC is very well done in my opinion - you can surf, watch movies, listen to music, use a webcam and got network via wlan - all nicely configured and ready to use. Browser plugins (Firefox) are installed as you're used to install them: Click on "install now" and that's it.

BUT: The eeePC is a really lightweight and small computer - it's more a thing to carry around, to have a mobile webbrowser and to check your mail while being elsewhere.

It just not a fully fledged PC or even Notebook, bear that in mind.

I have an eeePC as an addition to carry around, to sit in a cafe and to write some code and things like that - but watching a movie is really no joy on that kind of small display. :)

On the other hand: it's still bigger than a cell phone with camera and mp3 player included. ;)

Nowadays are most open source apps even more easy to install, because usally you just grab a distributor's package and say "install this" and that's it.

Welcome to LQ!!

I can see a minimum of two groups buying the EEE (or the other similar options--HP, Lenovo, etc.)

1. Don't care about the OS--just use it to surf and read e-mail.

2. Interested in all the possibilities, and aware that small and cheap might mean some limitations. Willing to dig deeper.

If, as it appears, you are in Group 2, I would recommend first learning about Linux by setting up dual-boot (or on a spare computer).