I've Done Research but Have a Few Qs Before I Buy

Hi,

I'm thinking of getting an aspire one. I currently have a Macbook, and I'm familiar with Macs and PCs. I want a small laptop that has really good wireless connection (both on my protected home network and my school network) and connects easily to ethernet with a standard cable. I see incredibly mixed reviews about the wireless, which is a must have for me. Is it spotty or does it work great? Also, for my school, when I plugged my computer into the Ethernet, it asked me to do one thing if I had a Windows, and another if I had a Mac. If I plug this in, will my schools internet not recognize it? Then I had to download a 'client' to login to to access wireless at my school - would this work on this machine? I've seen people at my school who I should ask who have acers, but I'm worried about this. I'm not worried about figuring out a new OS, and I dislike Windows, so I'm thinking of Linux, even though I've never used it. What I want this computer for is a lot of internet browsing (using firefox), IMing, and writing basic word docs. This is practical, right? Not too hard to figure out Linux for doing this sort of stuff? Also, I have a habit of leaving my computer on for a week at a time - does this model need to be shut down often or it starts having problems? I
m nervous because I hear a lot of problems with the wireless and it being broken out of the box. I'm willing to explore ways to fix minor issues and tweak things, btu I don't want a nightmare. My computer skills are better than average but I'm no techie. My understanding is that if I buy from amazon, I can return it. Does it sound like this is a feasible machine for me?

I'm deciding between these options:

Acer Aspire One AOA110-1831 8.9-Inch Netbook 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 1 GB RAM, 8 GB Solid State Drive, Linpus Linux Lite
Acer Aspire One 8.9-inch Mini Laptop 1.6 GHz Intel Atom N270 Processor, 512 MB RAM, 8 GB Solid State Drive, Linpus Linux Lite
Acer Pink Aspire One AOA150-1949 Mini Laptop PC Netbook with Intel Atom N270 Processor, 120GB Hard Drive and Windows XP

Which one is best? Do you think XP is the better option? your input is much appreciated!

 

Hi Siamesecat
I have had a few netbooks: the eeepc 701 (screen too small), eeepc 1000 (the right shift key drove me crazy) and now the AA1. Even though the screen is smaller than the 1000 I like it much better. Wireless is typical of 802.11g. The drivers for windows and linpus linux work great.

Others may have another opinion but I would recommend you go with the 120GB hard drive model. I have the 160 and have XP, fedora 10 with gnome and lxde (which I prefer to gnome and xfce) and linpus (thanks to the image created by mercado76). Each has their utility and since I have a large hard drive I can install all of them and triple boot. I use linpus for lounging around, watching hulu, surfing. It works fine, boots quick, and has good battery life. I use XP exclusive for powerpoint since I give alot of presentations and as much as I like openoffice impress powerpoint importing and exporting is really imperfect. OO writer works great and the keyboard is wonderful to type on. Fedora is fall back for everything else and just messing around with linux to learn a bit.

Of note with the SSD versions, if you decide linpus is too limiting, some people recommend quite a bit of tweaking (not hard but another step nontheless) to decrease read and writes to increase the life the ssd and improve performance.

From what you describe as your use for the AA1 I think it would be fine. Go with windows. You can always install acer-linpus or any other distro. Even if you dont like it... you know it and you can take your time learning linux.

I hope that helps. Good luck and post back when you get your AA1!

 

Thanks for responding! I never use powerpoints, but you would still recommend I get windows? Also, what is Fedora? I know it's somehow Linux related, but as I have no experience, I'm unsure. What are the advantages of XP - besides, of course, that I know how to use it?

 

It might be worth asking your school about connecting to their network via linux. If they chuckle, or mumble about not supporting it, then it's probably not worth the faff in pursuing a linux option. There are many different versions, or distributions as linux users say, of linux. Fedora is one of the popular mainstream ones. The AAO comes with a modified version of Linpus Linux Lite, which is about as far from popular mainstream linux as you can get, but would give you exactly what you're asking for (firefox, open office, IM), and obviously you would have the option to move to fedora or anything else that takes your fancy.

Incidentally, there are quite a lot of people who have got OSX working on their AAO. I'm not sure how easy to do it is, but it might be worth your while checking out the software-OSX forum if Macs are more your thing.