Laptop advice.......UPDATE

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 12 May 2008 12:21 pm

I'm shopping for a new laptop and I need some input please. I travel A LOT, and always carry my laptop with me. Every ounce of weight is critical, and there are some new ones out that weigh less than 25% of what mine does. I have it narrowed down to either the Packard Bell Easynote XS, or the Asus EeePC. Both have their own pros and cons. Has anyone had any experience with either of these models?
Thanks in advance for the help.

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 12 May 2008 2:02 pm

Macbook Air?

Richard Bass · Post by **Richard Bass** » 12 May 2008 6:34 pm

I have the Asus eeeps, had it since beginning of March. I hav e the model 4G/surf. I have nothing but praise for this little machine. Perfect for Email, IM, and surfing the net. I am using it right now at a cafe here in the Philippines. I do not download anything to it as it only has a 4G hard drive, and its not your regular hard drive its more of a built in sd card. no moving parts. I store my music and other things on a flash drive and listen thru a headset. I have absolutely no cons with this machine. At 350 plus free shipping from amazon its a great bargain.
Richard

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 12 May 2008 8:28 pm

I hadn't heard of it until now. Here's a review of the latest model: Asus-Eee-PC-900

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 12 May 2008 10:00 pm

I almost bought an Eee PC last year but decided to wait until they make one you can fold up like a map and put in your pocket.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 12 May 2008 11:44 pm

Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate the help!
That Asus 900 sounds like quite a machine. The only reservations I have are that I have no experience with Linux as an ops system. Any thoughts on that?
I also found another model that bears investigation. The Belinea s.book 1. A little pricier, and a few ounces heavier, but with 80 gig hard drive and a touch screen..........wow. Big drawback with this one (in my mind) is that they took up potential screen space with a silly removable skype phone.

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 13 May 2008 4:41 am

Linux is a great OS, easy to use and virus-free. But getting drivers for your wireless card to work can be very difficult. My favorite distro at the moment is PCLinux. Ubuntu is also popular; a new version has just been released.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 13 May 2008 9:13 am

Cal Sharp wrote:Linux ...
But getting drivers for your wireless card to work can be very difficult.
My favorite distro at the moment is PCLinux. Ubuntu is also popular; a new version has just been released.

Yes, it might be very hard to find other wireless drivers, but would you need to? One guy on Usenet said he had trouble with WPA-PSK connection but it seems to work otherwise.

As for installing other Linux distributions besides the default Xandros, I see that some people have got Ubuntu running on it, but I didn't see that anyone had installed PCLinux. One reason you might want to try another distribution is

The Synaptic Package Manager and apt-get can be used to install additional software through the repositories, although due to compatibility issues between the ASUS modified Xandros operating system and traditional Debian and Xandros repositories caution has been urged with some users reporting system abnormalities ranging from unexpected software behavior to booting inabilities

(quote from Wikipedia)

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 13 May 2008 9:26 am

Scott
Have you looked at even smaller devices such as iPAQ etc? If size and weight are critical, they might be a lot better (and cheaper) than eeePC. I thought the first eeePCs were a great deal, probably underpriced, but the new ones are expensive, and while they are smaller than most portable PCs, they definitely don't fit in your pocket.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 13 May 2008 10:52 am

Thanks again for all the help here guys, I'm pretty pc illiterate. I basically use one for communication on the road, and occasionally live recording via nuendo.
Earnest, I did consider a hand held device, but it really is annoying to me to have to scroll back and forth, and to be honest, I'm old and my eyes are not good enough for that, ha.
I think I'm going with the Asus EeePC 4G Surf for now (thanks b0b for the link to the review). Gonna get my feet wet with Linux. I really want the 900, but it's not available in Europe until June. I'm buying it here so I can leave it here betwixt tours, and so I don't have to carry a 120/240 converter. It's an 8.9" screen (no scrolling necessary, unlike with the 7" on the 700 and the Surf), and 20GB.
I tried it out today, and Richard is right, it's pretty cool. Graphics are good (especially for the size), and it feels pretty solid, much better than what I expected.
I'll let y'all know how it turns out.
Thanks again for the help, this forum rocks.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 14 May 2008 7:32 am

Another question.
I have opted to store any incidental programs and files (print shop, music, etc.) on usb sticks. Lightweight and easy to travel with.
I need advice of what to do with my recording programs. Can I simply store them on usb or will I need an external hard drive to operate them? Does that Asus EeePC 4GB Surf model have enough internal to do the job?
There are 32 GB usb sticks available now. Wow.
Another option is SSD cards. These are only available up to 16GB though from what I have found.
Help again please!
Thanks!

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 14 May 2008 7:40 am

Scott Shipley wrote:Another question.
I have opted to store any incidental programs and files (print shop, music, etc.) on usb sticks. Lightweight and easy to travel with.
I need advice of what to do with my recording programs. Can I simply store them on usb or will I need an external hard drive to operate them? Does that Asus EeePC 4GB Surf model have enough internal to do the job?
There are 32 GB usb sticks available now. Wow.
Another option is SSD cards. These are only available up to 16GB though from what I have found.
Help again pleae!
Thanks!

Most programs require "installation" these days. Installing to a removable drive may not work. Your data can be stored anywhere, but the program needs to be on the internal drive so that its launch icon will show up.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 14 May 2008 7:43 am

So, I would probably need an external hard drive? They make one that weighs less than a pound and is 120 GB, for about $100.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 14 May 2008 11:19 am

Scott Shipley wrote: I need advice of what to do with my recording programs. Can I simply store them on usb or will I need an external hard drive to operate them?

I'm a little confused here. What are your "recording programs"? I was under the impression that you had not used Linux yet, so what Linux recording programs do you have? You can get Audacity for Linux, and it's probably the best one. Almost everything is a free download in Linux (that's one big reason that people like it!) The eeePC has a mic input but I don't know if there is any other way to get audio in and out of it, because I don't know of any audio interfaces that have Linux drivers. And besides I think you would need a bigger machine for audio recording anyway (more RAM and a big disk drive).

You have lots of options for storage. Since size and weight are concerns, I would think that a little USB flash drive would work great.

Rick Campbell · Post by **Rick Campbell** » 14 May 2008 11:45 am

If you install a lot of programs on a laptop, it makes it very heavy to carry.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 15 May 2008 3:18 am

Funny Rick.

Earnest, I guess I am assuming that my programs are compatible with Linux. I'm using Nuendo and Steinberg mostly. Any thoughts?
By the way, I got those programs from a friend via a usb stick.

Thanks

b0b · Post by **b0b** » 15 May 2008 8:24 am

Windows programs don't run under Linux. It's a totally different computer environment. Your Windows recording programs won't run on a Linux computer.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 15 May 2008 8:31 am

Thanks b0b. I guess I will go ahead and get the 4GB Surf and use it (sans Nuendo) until the 900 20GB Windows XP version is available. I'm looking forward to getting 7 pounds of extra weight off my back! Why do they call it a laptop when it's your back that suffers?
$:\$
Thanks again for all the help guys, I really appreciate it!

Cal Sharp · Post by **Cal Sharp** » 15 May 2008 10:44 am

There's a Linux program called Wine that lets you run some Windows apps, don't know which ones. I've never tried it.

Earnest Bovine · Post by **Earnest Bovine** » 15 May 2008 10:49 am

eee PC has a long way to go before it will run anything like Nuendo. I'm not saying it won't happen; in fact Moore's law promises that it will.
Meanwhile eeePC has more than enough for websurfing and email. And you will probably like Linux better than Windows. The guys who make Linux have always been strongly motivated to fix what Microsoft did wrong.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 24 May 2008 4:32 am

I bought the Asus EeePC 4G Surf. I love it. Very fast and EXTREMELY compact. Smaller screen and keyboard, but not bad. Only real complaint is that there are almost no programs written for Linux. I will definitely be upgrading to the 20GB Windows version when it comes out, but for now this one is a winner. Thanks again for the help y'all!

Wiz Feinberg · Post by **Wiz Feinberg** » 24 May 2008 7:12 am

This thread involves a Linux computer and how to get Windows programs to work on it. Here are your currently available solutions.

First, Linux is an operating system, which, although it may appear similar, is not the same as Windows. Linux uses an entirely different set of executables and system files and has totally different ways of running them. Programs written for Windows (or Mac) do not run at all on the Linux operating system, unless you install a middleman "emulator" interface that translates the codes to allow Windows applications to run on Linux.

One of the best know Windows emulators is called Wine. Here is the basic description of what Wine is and does.

Wine is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of X, OpenGL, and Unix.

Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available.

Wine can be downloaded and installed into your Linux computer, then configured to allow various Windows applications to run. It cannot run all Windows programs, only the ones it knows about, or which are so similar to already covered programs that they will run under Wine.
<hr>
Another well known Windows "emulator" is called "WineTools", available here. WineTools is a menu driven installer for installing about 90 Windows programs under the x86 (Athlon or Intel PC) processor architecture with the Linux operating system using Wine. This software lets you install the following Windows software:

* DCOM98
* IE6
* Windows Core Fonts
* Windows System Software
* Office & Office Viewer
* Adobe Photoshop 7, Illustrator 9
* many other programs
<hr>
There are other commercial Windows emulators on the market, like CrossOver Windows and Linspire. However, there is no guarantee that your Windows applications will run using Wine or WineTools, on a Linux computer. If they do, they do, otherwise, you are out of luck until somebody adds that application to the emulator's database. You may be best using open source programs on your Linux machine as they are more likely to be Linux compatible already.

Hardware support under Linux is more limited that Windows. A limited number of the most common plug-in devices and on-board chipsets have Linux drivers available. Sometimes the manufacturer will write these drivers; other times the Linux distro authors will write their own drivers and include them on the Linux CD. Devices for which no driver is readily available will not work on Linux computers unless you are capable of writing your own drivers for them. This includes high end audio and video cards and a lot of wireless networking adapters.

This blog explains how to install and use Wine to run Windows programs on Linux, in layman's terms.

Scott Shipley · Post by **Scott Shipley** » 22 Aug 2008 2:25 pm

UPDATE...........I had a computer guru friend of mine uninstall Linux, and install a stripped down version of Windows XP Pro. He also replaced the 512 MB Ram with a 2 GB Ram.
Now, I'm rockin.

Grand Total: 350€ (approximately $500)

The Steel Guitar Forum

Laptop advice.......UPDATE

Laptop advice.......UPDATE

ASUS eee PC

Running Windows programs on a Linux computer