Netbook adventures--day 1

This entry deviates a bit from my normal subjects, but I have always been fascinated by computers--and especially by laptop, notebook, and subnotebook computers. I did plenty of writing on an Amstrad luggable laptop with a mere 64 K memory, two 1.4" floppy drives, and a tiny CGA display. Then for a time I also used a Tandy 100 three-pound tablet with even less memory and an eight-line text display. My favorite computer up until now was a Mitsubishi CN1, weighing less than three pounds and running Windows 95, Damn Small Linux, and Geoworks. Smaller and lighter have been my mantra, and thus I watched with great interest as the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) program began a few years ago. When Asus came out with the first Eee 701s toward the end of 2007, I was immediate obsessed. I wanted one, I really wanted one -- but not at the initial price. I decided to watch and wait.

During the past eighteen months, the market for netbooks has blossomed with a hundred flowers (in the form of different models and specifications). As newer models have come on the market, the price of older ones--usually less than a year old--has dropped. Finally, last week Amazon made me an offer I couldn't refuse. I wanted a Linux machine that was very light-weight, quick to boot, wifi-enabled, web-camed and useful as an e-book reader. In truth, many different netbooks could meet my needs, but the 2.2 pound Asus Eee Pc 900 20 gig is what I bought. Its price of $214, including shipping, brought it to the level of an impulse purchase. Useful, to be sure, but not really necessary since I have a perfectly adequate Acer laptop dual booting Vista and Ubuntu.

So this is my first day with the Eee 900. During the days before purchase and the week of shipping, I read all I could about it. Naturally, some people on the web complained about it, but they seemed to mostly be people who made lots of radical changes to the original operating system--often replacing it with some other version of Linux or with Windows XP and encountering problems in the process. There may also be some problems connecting to certain kinds of password-encrypted wifi networks. So my goal is to make minimal changes and keep things simple. So far, I have had to update Skype in an effort to get the web-cam functional. Then I had to add some software repositories to Synaptic and boot it from a terminal window in order to download and install FBReader for e-books. I also dropped on a copy of Xcbridge (a contract bridge game) for recreation. And I think that will be about it.

It boots up in less than 30 seconds. Reliably connects to my wifi network. Surfs the web with ease. And generally does everything I think a netbook ought to do. Minor questions about fine-tuning the various Xandros Linux programs are readily answered by a Google search of the accumulated knowledge of the large base of Asus netbook users already around. It really seems to be a very satisfying machine.