I got a bit of an education on netbooks today. It was bound to happen, sooner or later. Apple has really been getting to me lately, getting me down. So I first want to be able to go away without dragging that brick of a MacBook around with me, and even though it’s the latest greatest model I really don’t like the thing. The 2 MBP’s I had before this one I swore by. This one I swear at. Secondly I thought I would like to try out Windows 7 and since the book would come with it perhaps, I could see if Microsoft has made an OS I can use yet. The last version of Windows I actually used was 3.11. No, really. So away I went to the big box wasteland this morning and all in all it was an interesting day that almost turned out the way I’d hoped.
I ended up with a Gateway LT3114b that was a demo model, $300. 1gb ram and 160gb hd. It uses the AMD Athlon 1.6GHz 64bit. Wacky but it seemed like a cut above the Atom with basically the same profile. Unfortunately it came with XP and no upgrade path to W7 so I guess they don’t get to convert me this time. XP runs like a fly in amber on the thing so I pretty much immediately reached for Linux.
I always love installing Linux on a desktop style machine. For real server I stick with straight Debian but with desktop stuff I like to see what is new and exciting. A bit of research seems to point at Suse as the top of the pack for that but I had heard some buzz about Mint so I tracked it down. I couldn’t really find anything significant for why it’s better though. Seems like Ubuntu painted green and most of the talk about was about how great it was but very little about why it’s great. So I grabbed the Ubuntu 9.10 iso and went to work. The devil you know and all that.
First I tried to use that WUBI thing that installs Ubuntu right in a folder on the C: drive. Wacky. I figured at least I could try it before I blew away XP. No dice though. The installer worked great, booted into setup, installed everything, rebooted and showed me the boot menu. I picked XP and away it went so I rebooted again and picked Ubuntu and landed at the grub shell 
I did all that again 
I grabbed the plain iso and copied onto a 1gb USB stick, and booted that.
Amazing flawless repartition for XP and Ubuntu install. Everything seems to work, lights, camera, sound. Ok, not sure about the cam but everything else is flawless. Very impressive. So now I am happily typing this entry into ye olde blogge on the Gateway from FF on Ubuntu.
What’s up with the MacBook? Two simple things that for me destroy the experience, well three really. First, the glossy screen is impossible to look at unless the room is pitch black. Second, that idiotic glass trackpad just randomly stops working, or spasms out. Pounding on the trackpad to get it to register clicks and squinting at the glare pretty much make me want to drop it off a cliff. The third thing? Well, I paid $3000 for a thing I can’t stand using.The fact that they won’t fix the trackpad without stabbing me again in the wallet breaks the camel’s back it does. I’m a programmer, I live on this thing. Not happy, would not recommend. People get weird and cheap when they get famous and rich and I guess companies do too.
So I am hoping this little netbook style unit will keep me amused for a bit. At least it will allow me to do some of my work off that stupid MBP and have a break from being angry while working. This thing was $300!!! I could buy 10 of them for what I paid for that hunk of space shuttle aluminium. (it’s cut from one piece of aluminium you know? Like who bloody cares… the mouse won’t work!! *ahem*) Once I throw another stick of RAM in the little beast it should be just perfect for taking to the country and typing up the documentations and memoirs and weird mournful emails to Steve Jobs.
