What OS to install in my netbook?

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mike87

Limp Gawd
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Nov 17, 2009
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I have an Acer Aspire One netbook and it currently has a fresh install of windows XP.

It has the Atom N270 and 1gb of ram.

XP runs a little sluggish (gonna upgrade the RAM soon) ..., was wondering if maybe any of you had any luck with Windows 7?

Is Windows 7 faster (less hiccups) on a netbook than Windows XP?
 
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Win7 will probably run in Basic mode without Aero on your netbook. I can tell you with experience that Win7 (basic mode) runs almost perfectly on an EEE PC 1000HD. Aero will not work on it. But it's as fast or faster than XP, especially after it learns your habits.

When you add 2gb of RAM, Win7's superfetch thingamajig will love you long time. :-D

Edit: I should include the fact that the Eee PC 1000HD runs on a Celeron 900mhz. I'm not sure, but I think the Atom N270 (single core, 1.6ghz) is a bit faster.
 
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I've got an EEE with the 32bit Atom Processor plus 2GB of RAM, don't know what version but I purchased it back in August. First thing I did was dump XP and buy a Vista OEM for it, it ran much better. It has now been running Win7 Professional (for the offline-file sync feature) for about 2 weeks and seems faster than it was with Vista.

Now, just so you don't think I'm biased... When we had family over for T-Giving one of my relatives couldn't believe how fast it was compared to his just as new HP netbook with XP. Of course when I told him that's Windows 7 he immediately frowned on cue, thank you Apple!
 
Can't have a thread like this without an obligatory plug for Ubuntu Netbook Remix. Very slick stuff.
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I have the Jolicloud version of Ubuntu Netbook remix and along with the 'cloud' features it offers a very nice netbook experience.
 
Here's my rationale on netbooks.

They suck for doing much else than doing stuff on the "net", hence the name. So, you're living in a browser.

That said, the lightest OS you can get that offers a browser is Linux, and the most user friendly of those is Ubuntu, so Ubuntu for Netbooks gets a second from me as well.
 
If you want a really lightweight distro based on Ubuntu, look into Moblin. It's super basic and very netbook friendly.
 
I've had Moblin on my netbook before, its pretty snazzy how they designed the UI. It works. It was a fenced-in experience, like using a mobile phone instead of a computer. Ultimately though every linux distro I've tried has run well, so there hasnt been need for a 'netbook specific' distro. I've got the latest Ubuntu on it now, along with XP and 7.

I do a lot with my netbook, they are great little machines. Their strength over a smaller smartphone/mobile device is they can do everything that a larger PC can do, just slower. Except graphics due to complete lack of hardware. That didnt stop my from putting a few older FPS and RPG games on it though (BG2! and it runs Unreal, lol).
 
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I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise on a Dell Mini 9 at work. Atom N270, 1 gig RAM, and the Intel IGP. Aero is enabled and the system runs decently, actually better than XP.

noobtech said:
Why don't you try windows 7 starter?
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One issue I can imagine is that with Aero disabled, the already relatively weak CPU is further tasked with the GUI rendering.
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rflcptr said:
I'm running Windows 7 Enterprise on a Dell Mini 9 at work. Atom N270, 1 gig RAM, and the Intel IGP. Aero is enabled and the system runs decently, actually better than XP.
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I think it's the whole Aero dealy that makes Win7 feel faster because it offloads a lot of operating system duties to your graphics chip, making your Atom processor more forgiving for it's slower speed.
 
Azhar said:
I think it's the whole Aero dealy that makes Win7 feel faster because it offloads a lot of operating system duties to your graphics chip, making your Atom processor more forgiving for it's slower speed.
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There's that (see my edit) as well as the superior memory management that makes the experience that much more tolerable.
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I have Win7 Pro on my AAO netbook (1.5gb ram) with aero enabled and it is about the same "speed" as XP was but with the usual W7 improvements in functionality. The largest limiting factor in snappiness of the machine is mostly due to the slow hard drive.
 
Win7 Ult x32 on my 1000he. Love it, runs great, and with proper drivers from asus and intel, and proper power mgmt tweaks, not only does it perform great but the battery life is absolutely amazing. It runs all day, and not just browsing but playing xvid/divx tv series and such, all day. Without setting up video and OS power management well though, it can run dead rather fast. Be sure to set up super hybrid engine to auto power save while on batt, and enable the power save features in the intel win7 video driver. Ive been using it unplugged off and on since last night and Im still at 50% power.

And as said before, win7+aero seems to feel faster UI wise than winxp or win7 with classic UI. I like the explanation that it offloads some ui functions from the cpu to the gpu, makes sense!

1000HE +2gb memory upgrade here, and a 1gb SD card used as readyboost device sometimes, tho with 2gb ram it doesnt seem to make any difference.
 
I also have an Acer Aspire One, 1GB RAM. It had a fresh install of XP home, and was also sluggish (took forever to boot)

I ran Ubuntu Netbook Remix from a thumb drive, even that was faster than the XP. I did a proper install of UNR, and you wouldnt guess that it is an atom processor. Runs videos and even some work just fine.

My next step is getting a USB -> serial adapter to work (it doesnt have a serial port) to talk to external devices (configuring network devices, UPSs, etc)
 
I updated my Aspire One to 2GB of memory, and dropped Win 7 Ultimate on it the day I got it and I havent looked back since. It runs great. I still want to find better drivers for the graphics to try to get a bit more oomph out of it.
 
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