Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

[Guest]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

Wonks and nerds getting up a good head of steam on this thread I see. What a spectacle! (now you can all start hurling rotten vegetables at me in fits of raging pique to vent your ire because I am jeering at this deathly boring topic). :p

Jungian synchronicity and the wilder vagaries of the laws of chance was so much more interesting! But Fred shut the topic down ... because ... because ... because it was "unscientific"! :eek: :eek: :eek:

[Supercilious]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

I've been biting my tongue (gluing my keyboard -- I need an appropriate metaphor for this medium) on this thread. I've spent the last three decades deep in the bowels of Unix and Linux, with a few years here and there professionally on the Microsoft DOS/Windows side, and have setup most of my relatives with one kind or another of computer, including Linux, DOS, WIndows and Mac. I have a half dozen computers in front of me, a mix of Linux, Windows and Mac.

May I suggest this. It depends on what you want to do with the computer, on your tolerance for technical frustrations and on whom you can get to help you.

We have tolerated computers that were far less usable and reliable than we would accept from almost anything else. I think this is because computers have been changing and extending their uses and capabilities so fast that almost any half broken computer of today was worth more than the most stable computer that was more than five or ten years old.

If Linux does what you need, and if you have the temperment or a friend or family member with the temperment to get past the problems, then I recommend it. Every, every computer will have problems that are trivial to get past if you happen to know how, or that can totally stop you and waste hours and days and weeks of your time if you don't know.

The inner technology of Linux is more stable, but if you have to deal with the latest Microsoft documents from say fellow workers and get the formatting just right, you must use Microsoft. If you want to play PC games, you pretty much require Windows. If you are not tightly constrained by money and deal especially with sound and video and other such media, then Mac is awesome, and has internal technology as solid as Linux. Windows innards suck, but even I run it (while cursing at it) for some uses, such as games, the best tax and accounting software, and certain web sites (my bank for one) that require Internet Explorer.

Arguing whether an unreliable old FORD pickup truck, or a rusted out Vega hatchback, or a 60's muscle car with a blown cylinder is a better vehicle for you is pointless. They all suck, it depends on what you need to do, and on either your mechanical skills or your ability to befriend someone with such skills.

I completely agree with that. I was trying to make a few points though:
a) IMHO Vista is a disgrace, and the dumbed down home editions are terrible on low specs machines
b) some Linux distributions got advanced enough that can be considered consumer grade (I would put here Ubuntu and other debian based distros) and most of the home or small office users can do better with linux than with Vista or XP
c) having a dual boot machines Windows and Linux allows an unsophisticated computer user to have a cake and eat it too. For most common activities (internet browsing, text processing) he can use Linux which is faster, safer and crashes less, for those MS -only software he can use Windows. ( I still have Windows on my computers although I use almost exclusively Linux)

Adding Linux to a computer is like getting an extra feature for free. And it can be done in a safe way with very little headaches.

[touchring]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

I think the fundamental problem lies with outsourcing to you know where. the entire code base that microsoft uses is all screwed up. it needs to be thrown away and redeveloped from scratch.

[BrianL]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

Most of the software symbols mentioned runs on Windows as well (Open Office, Firefox, etc).

You could try switching to some of these programs while still running Windows to see if they meet your needs. It would also make that element of switching to Linux a bit less jaring as the programs would be familiar.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

I was trying to make a few points though

Good points.

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

the entire code base that microsoft uses is all screwed up

The Microsoft DOS/Windows code base has been a large steaming dung heap since long before there was much outsourcing of its coding.

[Supercilious]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

Jim has not written on message on iTulip since he started participating on this thread...


I'm afraid he has been converted to that awful cult called linux

[Jim Nickerson]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

Jim has not written on message on iTulip since he started participating on this thread...


I'm afraid he has been converted to that awful cult called linux

Thanks, symbols, for guiding me to install Ubuntu. I got it installed as 2nd operating system on an older Windows XP laptop really with no difficulty.

I have a problem with running dual monitors that existed in Windows and presists in Ubuntu, and perhaps Linux has a solution to remedying that problem once I figure a few things out.

I got the Evolution email program set up, and imported all my IE7 bookmarks into Firefox on my main machine, and then exported those from that Firefox and imported them into Ubuntu and that works, even as I write this from a tab in Firefox on my Ubuntu installation.

Purely from a time perspective I have not "fooled" around a lot in Ubuntu, but as time allows the system is setup for me to do so. There is no problem with directing the boot to open Windows, except one has to watch the boot and select Windows as the default boot is into Ubuntu.

[LargoWinch]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

Yes, Ee book from Asus, linux installed. This must be microsoft's greatest nightmare.

$250? You got ripped off.

I got mine for ... $100.

Wait: more like $400/2 = $200. but still cheaper...

http://laptop.org/en/

[LargoWinch]

Re: Anyone getting a $250 netbook?

Wonks and nerds getting up a good head of steam on this thread I see. What a spectacle! (now you can all start hurling rotten vegetables at me in fits of raging pique to vent your ire because I am jeering at this deathly boring topic). :p

Jungian synchronicity and the wilder vagaries of the laws of chance was so much more interesting! But Fred shut the topic down ... because ... because ... because it was "unscientific"! :eek: :eek: :eek:

Luke! where have you been?

I was hoping to read more of you posts during Xmas. Guess I will wait for 09.