I got a netbook for just this reason and I'm extremely happy with my purchase. I got an Acer Aspire One 8.9" screen and the 8gb SSD option.

I put Fedora 10 (Linux) on it and I'm using code::blocks as my IDE. I'm making a 2D Isometric RPG style game (blog.turt99.com)

You have to scroll a lot and optimize screen resources by turning off all extra display options. (ie. Compile Output is not needed unless you just compiled and it failed).

Its small yes, but its there when your ready to program.

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by davepermen

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight
I've been thinking about buying a couple of these, some USB hard drives, and using them as servers around the house.

www.mini-box.com has the M200 and M300 which i use for servers (and cheap workstations).

i don't think you can get new hw for less than that (<200$ depending on config).

Holy crap those are awesome.

You might also be interested in the Buffalo Kurobox, which can be had for $160 or less.

I use a 17" laptop as my primary computer. It's wonderful. A Dell E1705. (4 years old). I'd recommend if your going to be programming just buy a nice 17" laptop that you can carry around and such.

You can get dual 9800 graphics cards in one so you should be fine. I don't upgrade computers so it works out well. If you're one of those people that runs out to grab the newest video card and newest processor and such then a laptop might not be for you.

Quote: I wonder if you guys buy and install Windows or use the usually pre-installed Linux.

I'm using Windows 7 on mine. I think not many of them come with Linux nowadays; the trend is toward Windows XP. I think Microsoft made it quite cheap for them to do that a while ago (like $30 or so).

The keyboards vary quite a bit from one netbook to another. My 10" is big for a netbook and the keyboard size and quality is great. Obviously a 7" one will be tougher to type on, and 9" ones might be uncomfortable for some. Even within the same size class (like 9"), keyboard sizes can vary a fair bit.

Quote: There is just something about going all the way down to such a tiny screen that just makes shrug my shoulders and accept the small screen space, where as when I just simply drop one of my 17"crts to use a single 18" LCD, I'm always looking around for more space. With the small screen I accept that I can't have everything open at once and I don't mind anymore.

I agree with that. On my desktop, 24" is finally big enough that I feel comfortable with the size. A laptop or 17-19" LCD seems too small to me and I've always complained to friends that I wouldn't want a laptop partially because the screen is too small. But surprisingly, I've had few issues with the netbook resolution.

Quote: Original post by Ravuya

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight

Quote: Original post by davepermen

Quote: Original post by capn_midnight
I've been thinking about buying a couple of these, some USB hard drives, and using them as servers around the house.

www.mini-box.com has the M200 and M300 which i use for servers (and cheap workstations).

i don't think you can get new hw for less than that (<200$ depending on config).

Holy crap those are awesome.

You might also be interested in the Buffalo Kurobox, which can be had for $160 or less.

for the 20$ or so, it's quite a bit less performance. the mini-boxes are used as full workstations with vista on it, or home servers installed. i don't want to try this on the arm.
but for linux fans, it may be enough (still investing a bit more into atoms with up to 4 hyperthreads and 2 cores doesn't hurt.. espencially for smaller servers)




btw: while i haven't programmed on the asus eee 900 of my gf, i actually tried djing with traktor on it. the display, while small, is impressively good to look at, it's quite nice to dj with it. the only thing was really slow track loading times due to the slow ssd-flash-thingens. so yeah, while the screen is quite small and lowres, it is quite nice to work with. (and i'm still impressed that a celeron can dj :))

Quote: Original post by shurcool

Quote: Original post by rumble
Is the most common Atom processor equivalent to a Pentium 3 1ghz? Compilation will be much slower eh?

Most netbooks have Intel GMA 950 as gpu?

No, the common Atom N270 is very close to a Pentium 4-M 1.8 GHz that I have, at least based on the SuperPi 2M running time.

Yes, most netbooks have GMA 950/500 as gpu, with N10J-A1 being the only exception that I know of.

The Pentium 4-M was based on the old Northwood architecture circa ~2002. It wasn't much faster than the old Pentium 3's - in fact I believe the early ~1.4ghz Pentium 4's were slower than the old Pentium 3's since they had worse performance/clock.

So while I don't think the Atom 1.6ghz would be quite as slow as a 1ghz Pentium III, it's not far off.

I use an ASUS 1000he for scientific work and as my sole home computer. I upgraded the RAM to 2GB and removed Windows in favor of Fedora 11 beta with a KDE desktop. I honestly didn't notice the keyboard was any smaller than the one I use in the office (a desktop machine). It did take me a bit to get used to the flat "chiclet" keys, but it wasn't a hard transition. I do usually use a track ball instead of the track pad, but, as far as track pads go, the one on the 1000he is fine, I just don't like track pads. As far as build construction and heat, it feels as solid as any laptop I've used and is one of the few I've used that doesn't cook my nethers.

For me, the size is perfect. I wouldn't want to go any smaller (e.g. on of the 8.9" screens) for my main computer (both due to screen size and keyboard size). At the same time, I find that even a 13" laptop is big enough to make me think twice about porting it around. Basically, if I decided I needed a bigger screen, I wouldn't have bought a laptop (though you can always hook up another screen to the VGA port).

But, as a warning, like Talroth, I went in expecting to change my work flow. Since vertical space is more precious than horizontal on the 1024x600 screen, I moved the taskbar, etc. to the left hand side of the screen. I split it into menu/launchers/taskbar on the top and system tray/clock on the bottom with a gap between them which I use to switch desktops (mouse wheel on desktop switches desktops, although the two-finger gesture on the touch pad is a bit sensitive). I often end up with music on one desktop, notes and documentation on a second, one for coding, and another for general browsing and extra workspace, documentation, notes, whatever. I also find myself using translucent terminals to read documentation underneath while I'm working with the terminal. And, I think it's worth pointing out that I find that some of these habits are actually improvements and I use them even on my office machine.

The main regression I've had to deal with is mostly working with maximized windows. I also trim down applications to only show the most vital information. This is perhaps the biggest pain for me when coding, in that I end up dedicating most of the screen space to the code itself at the expense of other useful information about the code.

I'll also say to be careful about how much power you need from your machine. This is another sacrifice I was willing to make, but, depending on what you want to do with it, it may not be feasible for you. Don't get me wrong, netbooks can be surprisingly powerful. I run KDE with some compositing effects (in particular translucency and the desktop cube) and haven't noticed any problems with that, even though I was a little hesitant from all the suggestions to use XFCE or LXDE I'd seen (I wonder if they even tried KDE on it). I don't like wobbly windows, but, so you know, they don't always run smoothly (but much more smoothly in KDE 4.2 than earlier in the 4.x series). The only game I've tried besides the card games is Deus Ex, which runs fine in Wine with software rendering, but gets a little jerky when I try to use OpenGL.

So, in my experience, it takes some sacrifice and a willingness to change, but I find that it's more than made up for by the fact that I actually use it.

Quote: Original post by rumble
Is the most common Atom processor equivalent to a Pentium 3 1ghz? Compilation will be much slower eh?

Most netbooks have Intel GMA 950 as gpu?

I wonder if you guys buy and install Windows or use the usually pre-installed Linux.

From what I've heard, the 1.6GHz Atom is approximately equal to the 900MHz Celeron but uses slightly less power and (I think) runs slightly cooler.

Personally, I don't like anything less than a full keyboard, but I'd never want a laptop big enough to have one (17" or more is not a portable machine). However, I own an EEE PC 900 and I find it workable. However, I do "scripting" on it and not "real" programming because it doesn't have the processing power to run the kinds of programs I like to experiment with. Basically, I use it a lot like I used my TI-92+ in school.

I mostly use mine for netbooking (web, mail, etc) and as a better ebook reader (I can actually read pdfs. It's ridiculous IMO that most ebook readers can't do that yet cost far more than a refurb eeepc900). I upgraded the 512 MB to 2GB and got a 16GB SDHC card to make the final price around $250. I might upgrade the 4GB SSD but so far it looks like it'll be sufficient for the OS (eeebuntu) and the few programs I use (firefox, thunderbird, python and komodo, some pdf reader)

Quote: Original post by Extrarius
I might upgrade the 4GB SSD but so far it looks like it'll be sufficient for the OS (eeebuntu) and the few programs I use (firefox, thunderbird, python and komodo, some pdf reader)

As far as I remember, the 4GB is soldered in place, so good luck with that. On the bright side it is faster than the other drives the 900 comes with, much faster.


The EeePCs have two sets of drives, up to 4GB soldered SSD that is very quick, and one mounted on a special internal connector (I think it is a mini-PCIe slot. Maybe? Not really sure.) which is sold upto 16GB I think, giving an option for 20 in total. Maybe they have larger options, not really sure. The only bad thing is that the second bulk drive is made with a far slower style SSD to save money. But apparently you don't really notice this while using it for general purpose tasks.
The only time this really comes into play is when you foolishly buy the version with only the 16GB to avoid a soldered component you can't replace,... Then boot times suck and feel like a standard laptop, but other than that it isn't bad.

Quote: Original post by Talroth

Quote: Original post by Extrarius
I might upgrade the 4GB SSD but so far it looks like it'll be sufficient for the OS (eeebuntu) and the few programs I use (firefox, thunderbird, python and komodo, some pdf reader)

As far as I remember, the 4GB is soldered in place, so good luck with that. On the bright side it is faster than the other drives the 900 comes with, much faster.[...]

The stripped refurb 900s don't have the soldered SSD - the only drive they have is a pcie 4GB drive (and 512 MB of RAM).