cheap laptop or netbook advice

[mimosa]

Im contemplating buying either

Asus E239 1GB 320 GB Atom N2600 1.6 GHz Wireless card Atheros AR 9485, 239 Euros

or <an apparent bargain at 299 euros>

INSYS WV2251ELQLB 4GB 320GB Celeron 1.8GHz, wireless card unknown

Neither has an optical reader though the first has a slot for one. Both come with Ubuntu preinstalled.

Obviously the first one has a far better spec but I cant decide whether I want the big screen <15,6 inches>. If not the Asus is probably as powerful as I need and it is much lighter and less bulky.

So Im just posting to ask if anyone has any experience or recommendation of either of these, as to whether to avoid with a bargepole, or leap straight in.

With apologies for misconfigured WIndows keyboard

[Akuna]

For traveling, I found the smaller screen the best (although it must have a good definition, my 10 inch features 1366x768 and is very clear).
Bigger machines I had before quickly got damaged. Also autonomy is a must, 5/6 hours is great.

[hakerdefo]

Hi mimosa! ASUS EeePC X101CH-BLK043S is available for 199 euros in UK,

ASUS EeePC X101CH-BLK043S
Processor Intel Atom N2600 Dual Core (1.6GHz, 1MB Cache)
Screen 10.1" (1024x600 Resolution, LED Display )
Operating System Windows 7 Starter
RAM 1GB (DDR3)
Hard Drive 320GB
Graphics Integrated (Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 3600 with up to 218MB Memory)
Ethernet 10/100MB Fast Ethernet
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n
USB Ports 2x USB 2.0
Webcam Integrated Webcam & Mic
Weight 1-2 Kg (This Model 1.1kg)
Card Reader 2-in-1 card reader (SD™, MMC)
Battery 4-5 Hours (Up to 5 Hour Battery - 3 Cell)
Warranty 1Yr ASUS Collect & Return
Other HDMI, VGA, Audio In, Audio Out

More info here,
http://www.simplyasus.com/ASUS_EeePC_X1 ... 91733.html
It seems Asus E239 and X101CH-BLK043S have identical configs but there is 40 Euro price difference. So if you happen to be in UK or you got a friend there i might have saved your 40 Euros
And in that case you owe me a beer

[mimosa]

Thank you indeed but I ended up buying it before I read your post. I still consider I owe you a beer, even though I don't deeply regret my haste: the little box has been enormously useful jst this past day or two.

I've never owned a laptop before and need to find out about power saving and how paranoid to be about running the battery down and charging it up again (as I understand, all the way in both directions, but that rather reduces the flexibility the battery is supposed to give you). Also, I use tiling WMs because I like them, but the small screen and power issues are two more reasons. Only now I'd like a panel so I can see the state of the battery ... ah fun fun fun!

For now I am using ubuntu and it sucks so much it won't run suckless tools properly. I had to change the terminal back to gnome-terminal to make it #faster# than st. When I have a moment I'll install Salix 14. Live (13.37) won't do without a kernel upgrade or lots of fiddling because of the wireless chipset. Easiest is 14.

[gapan]

I've never owned a laptop before and need to find out about power saving and how paranoid to be about running the battery down and charging it up again (as I understand, all the way in both directions, but that rather reduces the flexibility the battery is supposed to give you).

No, don't ever do that. That is old advice about old kinds of batteries. All new laptops have Li-ion batteries which should never be drained fully. If they do (even once), their total capacity is reduced and it is reduced every time they are drained. Shutting you laptop down when battery is 10-15% should keep you safe.

Also, I use tiling WMs because I like them, but the small screen and power issues are two more reasons. Only now I'd like a panel so I can see the state of the battery ... ah fun fun fun!

I just have a C-T y binding in ratpoison to echo the battery level.

[mimosa]

Thanks for the battery advice. SO basically you can do what you like as long as you dont run it down too near the bottom?

I now have a host of other problems For now back to WIndows

Though the wireless works with 14.0, for some reason although the authentication works, the IP address allocation fails. I-m not too concerned becaue that is just here in this hotel <I can connect to an unsecured network from the balcony> but it is a practical impediment. I have no X whereas 13.37 live gave me X after an ugly hiccup. I mention the hiccup because I imagine it may be quite telling. With 14.0, no dice except runlevel 3.

Im sorry to say that in these basic respects, all worked fine with Ubuntu 12.04. But that is long gone.

My immediate problem is formatting a USB stick as FAT. I tried 0B or 1B in cfdisk but Windows doesnt like it. The hotel owner intelligently denies administrator privileges to her guests so I cant format the stick using windows. Any idea what cfdisk might do to please Windows? Im sorry to say Im hoping to put Ubuntu back on it for now and dual boot salix till Ive solved everything.

Another thing> gparted wouldn`t run. Maybe something to do with the factory setup of the machine. Maybe something more sinister. So in effect, 13.37 Live is no use as a rescue system <no wireless at all becaue the kernel doesnt support the hardware, though the 14.0 kernel apparently does>.

Apologies for and to microsoft for the evident keyboard layout problems.

[gapan]

Thanks for the battery advice. SO basically you can do what you like as long as you dont run it down too near the bottom?

Yes, that's pretty much it.

Though the wireless works with 14.0, for some reason although the authentication works, the IP address allocation fails. I-m not too concerned becaue that is just here in this hotel <I can connect to an unsecured network from the balcony> but it is a practical impediment.

What kind of wireless chipset is that?

I have no X whereas 13.37 live gave me X after an ugly hiccup. I mention the hiccup because I imagine it may be quite telling. With 14.0, no dice except runlevel 3.

And what kind of graphics card does it have?

My immediate problem is formatting a USB stick as FAT. I tried 0B or 1B in cfdisk but Windows doesnt like it. The hotel owner intelligently denies administrator privileges to her guests so I cant format the stick using windows. Any idea what cfdisk might do to please Windows? Im sorry to say Im hoping to put Ubuntu back on it for now and dual boot salix till Ive solved everything.

Either I'm misunderstanding something or you are misunderstanding something. cfdisk does not format partitions, it doesn't create filesystems. cfdisk creates/removes partitions. If you want to format the partition you have created with a certain filesystem, you have to use an mkfs.* command.

Another thing> gparted wouldn`t run. Maybe something to do with the factory setup of the machine. Maybe something more sinister. So in effect, 13.37 Live is no use as a rescue system <no wireless at all becaue the kernel doesnt support the hardware, though the 14.0 kernel apparently does>.

Don't know about gparted not running. Are there any error messages in the terminal?

[mimosa]

Sorry, that wasn't a very informative post. My excuse is the somewhat difficut conditions

The wireless chipset is Atheros AR9485 - not the same but similar to one another user had trouble with before 14.0 and after many many posts, he and I worked out how he could upgrade his kernel. As I am posting now on the back of someone's unsecured internet, this shouldn't be problem.

As far as I can tell the video is "integrated" in the Atom CPU, the number of which is posted above in this thread. Gparted says it doesn't have permission and dies - probably something to do with the hidden partition with Ubuntu restore on it. Once I have a graphical environment again, I will get rid of that and try again. All command line tools work with no complaint (fdisk, parted, cfdisk). You are right I misunderstood the function of cfdisk. But then why does it offer that huge range of partition types? DOes it even matter which you choose? 83= Linux (or is it 82) I half-know that much ...

It's quite instructive being on the wrong end of a cluster of problems like this. Never really happened to me before. w3m is my friend.

EDIT

Another problem which may or may not be specific to this situation: when I installed 14.0, the installer failed on mesa. I elected to skip. As luck would have it, mesa is a dep of unetbootin (yes, I am trying to put Another Distro on here for now ). Trying to install mesa with slapt-get, there is a md5sum failure. Overriding with --no-md5, the install fails anyway "unexpected EOF". I've tried to find where any existing mesa...txz is and delete it, with what success I'm unsure. Could this be an error in the repo?

[mimosa]

I am pleased to report that (as I expected) a fresher kernel has resolved both problems, video and wireless. Being a lazy slacker, I got it by installing Slackel Openbox 3.0. The most recent Slackel Live KDE also worked well but when I had trouble with the installer I lazily went for Openbox. Thank you djemos for making it!

I'll look into the mesa problem, which was probably because of a bad copy (though not a bad download).

Bye-bye Buntu