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From: Tom Anderson on 24 Apr 2010 08:07
On Fri, 23 Apr 2010, Tony Houghton wrote:

> In <8dg9a7-k7g.ln1(a)purestblue.com>,
> Justin C <justin.1004(a)purestblue.com> wrote:
>
>> The netbooks I've looked at so far have been HP, Acer, and Samsung.
>> IIRC the Acer was the best spec'd machine, the HP seemed OK, but the
>> Samsung seemed the best built, and had a lovely keyboard - I type a lot
>> so this is important to me. So I'm leaning toward Samsung at the
>> moment.
>
> It's worth looking at 12" models IMO. Still small enough to be a netbook
> in terms of portability, but with a 1366x768 screen which is far more
> usable.

+1

I bought an EeePC 1001HA for 200 quid including shipping. A bit later, my
housemate bought a 12" mini-laptop (not a netbook!) for 330 on the high
street - 50% more, a little bigger in each direction, but with three times
the memory, a faster processor, a better screen, etc. I was in a huff for
days.

If what you want is a machine you can take anywhere and get things done
with, and you can spare an extra hundred or two, then i think you should
ignore netbooks and look at small laptops.

The netbook still wins if you're after the absolutely minimum possible
size and cost, and you can tolerate less performance. It's actually,
despite what i say above, a good fit for me - in a neoprene case, it just
fits in my bike's rack bag, which a 12" wouldn't, which means i can take
it anywhere without having to resort to a pannier bag. I mostly use it as
an internet terminal, for mail and web surfing, and for that, maximum
power isn't important.

It would be nice to have a bigger screen for the web, but 12" still
wouldn't be big enough - i should get a cheap monitor to plug it into when
i'm at home. When i sit down to do any nontrivial programming (doing
something with JBoss, for example), the lack of power starts to bite; but
really, what i need to do is get a *proper* machine for that. That could
mean the Macbook Pro i've been promising myself for years, or it could
mean a cheap headless box i stick in a cupboard and use via NX. Or even
something on the cloud, perhaps.

> I've got an HP/Compaq Mini 311 with Ion LE graphics. The only
> things I don't like are that you need to use Fn + arrow keys for PgUp/Dn
> (and End and Home)

My Eee does that, and i love it - it's so much easier to touchtype the
fn+arrow combination than a 'proper' home/end/pgup/pgdown, and not having
those means there's more space, so all the other keys can be a bit bigger.
My old Powerbook goes further, and uses fn+backspace for delete, which is
even better - it's so much easier to touchtype than finding the tiny
little delete key lurking in the corner of my Eee keyboard. It's what
you're used to, i suppose.

tom

--
DO NOT WANT!
From: Tony Houghton on 24 Apr 2010 16:27
In <hquati$7jk$1(a)speranza.aioe.org>,
alexd <troffasky(a)hotmail.com> wrote:

> On 24/04/10 00:21, Tony Houghton wrote:
>
>> I don't think there's been a significant problem there in recent
>> versions. You do have to use the update-manager though; if you just
>> change /etc/apt/sources.list and run apt-get dist-upgrade you probably
>> can expect problems.
>
> Really? I haven't had update-manager installed since 8.04. What are
> these problems?

They always used to say you had to use the update-manager rather than
apt-get etc [1], and I'm pretty sure Mint's website mentioned that even
that didn't work properly for the last version of Mint (which doesn't
have many exclusive packages). Is the manual way officially supported in
Ubuntu now?

[1] And if you wanted to upgrade by more than one version, you had to
visit the version(s) in between, unless perhaps you started with an LTS.

--
TH * http://www.realh.co.uk
From: Nix on 24 Apr 2010 21:06
On 24 Apr 2010, Daniel James told this:

> In article <8dg9a7-k7g.ln1(a)purestblue.com>, Justin C wrote:
>> Looks like I might be happier staying away from Ubuntu for a while, I
>> recall reading about the breaking on upgrade before.
>
> I haven't tried an in-place upgrade, but those I know and trust who
> have say that it works well if you upgrade EVERY version, but can break
> badly if you try to skip one.

This is exactly the same as Debian, and has been the rule from day one.
(Among other things, dpkg features introduced in dpkg in version X can
be used in archives in version X+1 *if* you can ensure that the user has
upgraded to version X. If this rule wasn't in place, the packaging
system could never gain new features at all.)
From: Mark Hobley on 25 Apr 2010 03:04
Justin C <justin.0911(a)purestblue.com> wrote:
> Lastly, where do we stand these days with a rebate for declining the
> Windows license and over-writing the install?

It is not easy to get the rebate. You are legally entitled to this, because
product tying has been ruled as illegal in the European courts, however many
suppliers will not cooperate with giving the rebate. If the supplier will not
give the rebate, tell them that you will be reselling the disks, so insist
that that they give you a full installation disk (not an OEM one with
technical restrictions on activation), so that you can resell it on
Ebay to recover the value of the software.

Failing that you will need to try different suppliers, file a complaint with
trading standards, sue the supplier in small claims, or file a complaint with
the European Union. It is a pain. At least you can file a complaint with
small claims online now.

Mark.

--
Mark Hobley
Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/

From: chris on 26 Apr 2010 06:47
On Sat, 24 Apr 2010 00:40:41 +0100, Daniel James <daniel(a)me.invalid> wrote:

> In article <f96.4bd19517.35dde(a)zem>, Justin C wrote:
>> Lastly, where do we stand these days with a rebate for declining the
>> Windows license and over-writing the install?
>
> According to the terms of the XPH licence I refused before putting
> Ubuntu on my recent Acer Aspire One:
>
> [If you don't agree ... ] "... you should promptly contact
> Manufacturer for instructions on return of the unused product(s)
> for a refund in accordance with Manufacturer's return policies."
> So, I guess it depends on "Manufacturer"'s policy ... I have heard that
> HP just say that if you don't like their Windows licence you can return
> the whole machine for a refund. It would serve them right if we all
> bought machines from them, installed linux on the hard drive so they
> had to reinstall the Windows systems before they could resell, and
> asked for a refund ... but there's probably a handling fee involved.
>
> I haven't YET tried to get a refund on my XPH licence (XPH, I ask you?
> If it had been Pro it might have been worth keeping for dual boot). I
> do intend to try but I don't suppose the amount I might get back will
> be worth the effort. I'm not even sure whom to contact at Manufacturer
> .. er, I mean Acer.
>


From what I've read, in the UK legally it's the vendor that is responsible
for unwanted licences. Apparently, this is another example of MS's EULA
trampling all over UK users' consumer rights.

Like you say, it may not be worth get into this for the sake of a tenner
or so. But that is what they are partly banking on... <sigh>
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