[GRLUG] Pre-installed Linux on laptops

[Benjamin Flanders]

On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 3:00 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 2:35 PM, john-thomas richards <jtr at jrichards.org>
> wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 26, 2010 at 02:20:50PM -0500, Bob Kline wrote:
>> [snip]
>> > The technical details are pretty skimpy.
>> > e.g., how much RAM.  IMHO it's better to
>> > get a cheap laptop and just run Puppy
>> > or something.  The netbooks look pretty
>> > expensive yet for what you get.  A CPU
>> > with no poop, and pretty lousy battery life.
>>
>> It's amazing how these "netbooks" resemble regular laptops from a couple
>> years ago but with a small screen.  I think the concept was a small,
>> lightweight net device that wouldn't hurt a great deal if lost / dropped
>> / stolen.  Now "netbook" essentially means "laptop with small screen and
>> little cost-savings."
>> --
>> john-thomas
>>
>
> I think the last line about covers it.
> At present, they make little economic
> sense IMHO.
>    -- Bob

It wasn't too long ago that a small size commanded a large premium,
even for an underpowered laptop.  Compared to then, the netbooks look
great.  They have pretty darn good battery life, very small and light
and the atom doesn't seem(to me) to be underpowered.  I bought an atom
board last year for a small file/multimedia server and it does great.
It can even do video transcoding(pyTivo using ffmpeg) at a little
under real time.

My only concern is the screen size/resolution.  800x600 seems just too
small for just about anything.



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Ben