Laptop arrived Dec 16, 2010. This one has the 1.66GHz atom processor. 160GB SATA, 1GB memory, 10" (1024x600 or so) w/ on board intel video,

Ubuntu 10.10

I really wanted to try the new Unity look and feel on this tinier screen. Having had a Samsung Galaxy S android (2.1) based phone for a few months now, I am slowly getting fed up with it being so unresponsive at times, as well needing a windows box for one specific application for badminton.... this was a good excuse, and well under $300.
First impressions:

   - created a USB bootable image, since this laptop doesn't have a CD/DVD 
	anymore. Worked great, except you need to add
	
	intel_idle.max_cstate=0

	to the boot (and later add it for grub/lilo booting)
	Later kernels (2.6.36 and up) should have this fixed.

    - everything worked, sound, video (tried skype and cheese), flash,
	wireless and  wired internet.
	Only thing not working yet is screen brightness.

    - battery usage loooks pretty decent, should be getting almost 7hr
	out of this.

    - interest QuickStart button that gives you internet in a 2 seconds boot
	(from cold boot though). The desktop looks very linux/ubuntu like.
	Impressive.
	Warning though:  this account doesn't have a password, and once you have
	started apps and used a password, be sure to not have them remember those,
	as they are stored somewhere in silicon inside the machine.

	Also notable is that starting the apps takes a lot longer than in native
	linux.

Links

This page was last modified on 20-Dec-2010 by teuben@astro.umd.edu.