Several questions

Hi!

I already ordered an AAO 110, it should arrive soon. There are some issues I'm not sure about and haven't found a sufficient answer, yet. Maybe you can help me.

I plan to upgrade the memory, a 1 GB stick has been ordered together with the AAO. However, I have seen the videos and heard that there are some AAOs around, that are harder to disassemble (glued screws, taped keyboard). Is this true? How likely is it to get one of those? Is there a possibility to see, if I got a "glued" version, before I try to disassemble the AAO?

The reason why I want to upgrade the memory is that I plan to use some memory-consuming applications such as eclipse or a model checker. Of course, these aren't applications, the AAO is intended for, but I plan to use it while traveling to conferences etc. There, I won't run heavy tasks on the AAO, but it should be fast enough to show some smaller demonstrations. What's your guess, will this be the case? Might the AAO even be fast enough without the memory upgrade? However, I probably won't upgrade the memroy too soon since I really need the AAO to work during the next three weeks.

Another thing is that I plan to use an SD-card to extend the storage, but I'd like to have my home directory on the SD-card - my "dream" is to use this card containing my home directory on several PCs. Is here someone, who at least tried this? The first thing to do, I guess, is to disable the driver that forces Linux to merge the SSD and the SD-card. I read that there are problems and that the data on the SD-card most likely will get corrupted when standby is used. I also read, that this might not be the case, if you close all programs that access data on the SD-card. I actually don't think that this is comfortable, aren't there other solutions? Another reason for me to use a home-directory-SD-card is that I hope that this will lead to fewer writing-access to the SSD resulting in higher performance (assuming that the SD-card is faster than the SSD) and a longer lifetime of the SSD (since there should be more write-access to the home directory than to the rest of the file system). Are these thoughts reasonable?

The last issue concerns the OS. Even though the Ubuntu Netbook Remix looks nice, I plan to stick to the Linpus (at least for the first time). Are there important reasons, why one should use Ubuntu, or is it just a matter of taste? The AAO seems to use a Windows-XP-like theme that might waste a lot of screen-space. Somehow I have the feeling that the screen is that tiny that screen-space is very precious. I haven't seen a nice, tiny theme for XFCE around, but I'm also not familiar with XFCE, any suggestions?

Somehow, I've got the impression that there is a lot of work to do, before the AAO is "customized" to my wishes, but I think that it's worth it. Thanks for any help or comment!

 

This is obvious, but have you considered the XP version? Enough RAM without dissassembly, familiar, customizable interface, the ability to install software without hassle, more storage, and, important for conferences, proper configuration of the external monitor for output to a projector.

 

Well... I have considered the 150L, more memory but still running Linux. For e.g. programing, I find Linux much more convenient. In the end I decided to take the 110, because including a (non-installed) Kingston 1 GB stick it was still 65 € cheaper than the 150L. I'll see, if it was a wise choice.

Now it's actually too late, because I fetched the AAO from the post office yesterday evening. Unfortunately, even though the package had an unbroken acer-seal, it doesn't seem to be brand new; all visible screws are damaged as if someone tried to open it using the wrong tools.

The first thing I did was taking pictures and writing a mail to the reseller. Since I need the AAO, I don't want to send it back. Maybe I can get a discount or at least a letter that guarantees me warranty, since I can imagine that acer would complain, if I would send in a device with marks like these. However, now I'll probably not try to extend the memory...