I really enjoyed futzing with the netbook this weekend.
The hardware is really solid and the keyboard, though small, is manageable. The trackpad is easy to use and the screen is very bright and I really appreciate the matt-screen finish. All-in-all, the form-factor is very nice and easy to use. Probably the easiest hard drive and memory upgrade I have ever done on a laptop.
I followed some really good instructions for loading Ubuntu 8.10 onto the system using a USB stick. The install went very quickly and I was up and running in less than 30 minutes. After the initial install many of the features that folks struggled with months ago such as the Broadcom wireless driver and the trackpad worked just fine. I ran the software update and found 247 packages that needed updating. That also went very quickly. The only issues I experienced in Ubuntu were around the Gnome Power Manager, and a simple fix [HERE] and then un-ticking “Reduce backlight brightness” and “Dim display when idle” fixed a problem with the screen brightness fading while idle and not coming back.
Minor stuff! Now the weekend was also spent trying to get XP Pro to install from a USB stick.. what a pain! I looked all over the web and tried tons of instructions and tools, I finally gave up and went to play with the dogs.
Maybe I’ll try again later in the week.
