Brian Jarvis, UMPC Geek

When it comes to netbooks, there is no shortage of options to choose from. Most of those choices are centered around what hardware to choose, but there is also a choice to be made regarding which operating system will run on the device. Even after the purchase, there are a variety of aftermarket options that people use. I have been playing with some of these options and decided to write up my experience here.

Ubuntu
I was a Linux admin for about two years at Intel and can honestly say that I love Linux. That doesn’t mean that I use it every day though – mostly because the OS lacks the polish of most modern operating systems. It is very capable, more secure than anything else, and way more adaptable – I just don’t think it is ready for the masses. How much would Apple mock Microsoft if the directions to enable the wireless on your system was open a command window and type the following:

mkdir source
cd source
wget http://snapshots.madwifi.org/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6/madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3835-20080801.tar.gz
tar -xzvf madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3835-20080801.tar.gz
cd madwifi-hal-0.10.5.6-r3835-20080801
sudo apt-get install build-essential linux-headers-$(uname -r)
make
sudo make install
sudo modprobe ath_pci

There would be commercials poking at that for years, nonetheless, these are the directions for getting the wireless card to work in Ubuntu on the Aspire One. It works, but it sure isn’t pretty!

All criticism aside, Ubuntu is my favorite Linux distribution by far. It is the easiest to install, has an amazing community, and takes less configuration than many other distros. I have very high hopes for it in the future, but just don’t think that it’s ready for prime time. It makes me wonder if a Linpus experience would have been better, but I have used it in the past and was not very impressed. I just don’t see any Linux distribution being used by non-techies any time in the near future.

OS X
I installed a Hacintosh version of OS X on my Aspire One just to play with it some. My limited experience with OS X has been on huge cinema displays at one of the Universities I attended and I wanted to see what it would be like on a small screen. It turns out the small screen experience is not the best.

When UMPC’s first came out, Windows didn’t know how to handle the lower resolution screens and OS X is struggling with the same problem today. There were a number of the configuration windows and a few applications that were too tall for the Aspire One’s 600 pixel high display. It was frustrating to not be able to click a critical button or read what was somewhere below the bottom bezel of my netbook.

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It is too bad that it didn’t work though, because the operating system had promise otherwise. The system was quite snappy at its command and things worked quite well aside from a problem with my audio (that I didn’t take the time and energy to resolve). I really enjoy using Leopard with all of its eye candy like window animations and animated progress bars.

I realize that due to Apple’s screwed up EULA, it isn’t legally an option as an operating system on an Acer system. I’m sorry Apple (or any other ISV), if I legally purchase your software, I’m going to install it where I want. That is a whole different animal though and I will debate the merits and future of digital rights another day.   :^)

Windows XP
Next up is the operating system that came installed on my Aspire One – Windows XP Home Edition. I have to say that this OS seems to be best suited for the capability of the system and provides the best user experience out of the box. Sorry Apple fan boys, but it “just worked.” It seems to walk the line between performance and features better than the other options and is an excellent choice by the people at Acer. Since it’s not my winning vote though, that’s all I’m going to write about Windows XP on the Aspire One at this time.

Windows Vista
That leaves one mainstream OS that I haven’t already covered – Windows Vista. I have to remind everyone that I have upgraded the RAM on my netbook to 1.5GB, so I cannot speak to the experience with less RAM than that. I am quite pleased with how well it works though. I love the added features of Vista like folders giving you a preview of the contents, the animation of the windows, the built-in searching functionality, automatic file backups, and all of the interface touches like Aero (which runs very nicely on the Aspire One). I have been using Vista since its release and never had any compatibility issues, stability issues, or security concerns. I don’t mean to turn this into a post about Vista, so I will leave this issue by saying that I have never understood all of the bad press that Vista receives.

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The performance on Vista very comparable to XP, but there is one area where it performs much better. I have been amazed that the time to standby is only about 3 seconds and resuming is the same (one caveat on all operating systems is that the more you have running, the longer standby/sleep/whatever takes). This nearly instant-on access is a dream come true for a device that gets carried around as much as a netbook does.

Conclusion
The geek in me has had an absolute blast playing with these different operating systems. The reality is that there is a professional in me that pays the bills though, and it’s time to stop playing with the Aspire One and start working with it. I bought the unit so that I could make better use of my mobile computing time and for that reason, I’m sticking with Windows Vista for now.

I enjoy using Windows Vista and am comfortable with it. If I switched to something dramatically different, I would have to spend time and money finding replacement applications for things I already do in Windows (yeah, good luck getting Visual Studio to run under WINE in Linux). The reality is that I’m not going to be doing that at this time. Vista runs great, works great, and helps me get everything done that I need to do. So for now, that’s what stays on the Aspire One. Who knows, maybe next week I’ll change my mind.    :^)