linux on netbook.

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

realBabelfish

Soldato
Joined
23 Oct 2002
Posts
3,177
hi guys.

i have tried linux a few times on different disties and platforms but im now looking at a way to speed up my ageing netbook as win7 seemingly isnt as fast as it used to be (maybe needs a fresh install but it could be the added bloat over the years)

now, i dont use the netbook for much other than browsing web (chrome) and playing music in the conservatory (linked up to yamaha AVR via 3.5mm stereo jack and mordaunt short floorstanders)

music is stored on a dlna NAS.

so, what is the most stable, fast linux, in your view (i know this might be a contentious question). needs to be wife friendly!!

as im now mainly opensource for all my development at work (apart from win7 pro) i maybe should be looking at getting more familiar with linux too...
 
I suppose Mint is often recommended, not sure which would be best tbh. But if battery life is a concern, Linux isn't that great. Google around, there have been problems with battery life being significantly shorter when running Linux. I experienced it running Ubuntu and Mint on a laptop and netbook.
 
SMed said:
I suppose Mint is often recommended, not sure which would be best tbh. But if battery life is a concern, Linux isn't that great. Google around, there have been problems with battery life being significantly shorter when running Linux. I experienced it running Ubuntu and Mint on a laptop and netbook.
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thats a bit ****. why so? dont you have the power management that windows has?

to be honest battery isnt that big of an issue as it rarely leaves the house. we just want a speed boost without spending any cash.

just had to replace 4 car tyres. for that i could have bought a new laptop! grrr

btw - thanks for the replies
 
Can't remember exactly, something about the CPU not idling down properly. This also means it gets a little hotter. There are apps you can install that allow you to manually or automatically underclock the CPU when needed. I did this, but it still couldn't match Windows for battery life, but it did help.

Last time I checked, it was an established kernel problem and it didn't look like there was anyway for developers to fix it.

But there is still debate over it. Some say the problem doesn't exist. I don't agree.

But both laptop and netbook were still snappier with Linux.
 
j6m said:
Windows' Disk Management could do it, but you'd have to replace the Linux boot loader first.
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And to remove the bootloader I have only ever done two commands in the windows recovery console - 'fixboot' and 'fixmbr'
 
There have been a lot of power regressions in the kernel over the last 12>18 months, I think most have been patched of 3.3 and 3.4.

Ubuntu 12.04 backported some of the worst ones to kernel 3.2. So I'd probably go for this, it won't quite match windows but wont be far off by any means.
 
Bigsy said:
There have been a lot of power regressions in the kernel over the last 12>18 months, I think most have been patched of 3.3 and 3.4.

Ubuntu 12.04 backported some of the worst ones to kernel 3.2. So I'd probably go for this, it won't quite match windows but wont be far off by any means.
Click to expand...

That's good to know. I always go back to Linux in the summer or when I haven't got a tonne of academic papers to write. I'll stick the latest distro on my old laptop for chilling out in front of the tv. :D
 
I'm using (x)Ubuntu 12.04 (XFCE) on a HP (Mini) Netbook and it has no problems although I am not using Unity ofc (though it probably won't make any difference), I can't say much around battery life though as I've not ran Windows on it ever so cannot compare it to anything.
 
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