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    #1

    kubuntu on netbooks. opinions.

    My mother is considering buying a netbook and I have no experience with them whatsoever. I am looking at a model that comes preloaded with ubuntu. I would like to hear about experiences with netbooks. I have googled but didn't really find what I wanted to know.

    questions:

    I would do any admin tasks she needs, but she is a non-tech user. She doesn't do anything out of the ordinary. email, games, facebook etc. Is it mature enough for her? Are apps struggling to fit on the smaller screen?

    Can I just "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" (or something similar) to get a ubuntu preloaded netbook to have kde?

    Did wireless work for you out of the box? Please no ndiswrapper.

    Are the repositories for the netbook distro the same or equivelant? Would I be surprised to find a common package missing?

    any other pro's or con's or revelations would be appreciated. Thanks.
    FKA: tanderson
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    #2
    Re: kubuntu on netbooks. opinions.

    Originally posted by tanderson
    would do any admin tasks she needs, but she is a non-tech user. She doesn't do anything out of the ordinary. email, games, facebook etc. Is it mature enough for her? Are apps struggling to fit on the smaller screen?
    the desktop size is just fine , to make a bit more "space" i have turned all my fonts down one or two sizes smaller then default , the only other "admin" task i had to do was to use kwin's window rules to put my web browser on virtual desktop#2 and full screen it when it starts (but you can opt not to do that..) you might want to just show her how to use knetworkmanager so she can connect to the net
    Originally posted by tanderson
    Can I just "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" (or something similar) to get a ubuntu preloaded netbook to have kde?
    yes you can do that.. but it would be best to install kubuntu on its own to remove the confusion form the "extra" gnome apps in the menu , you can do this w/ the "usb creator" program and any *buntu iso (i used a usb 2 sd adaptor to make my sd card bootable and used that to install on netbook)
    Originally posted by tanderson
    Did wireless work for you out of the box? Please no ndiswrapper.
    This will naturally will depend on the netbook you get. mine came w/ a broadcom chip so i had to enable the driver in jockey. (no ndiswrapper was needed) i have since replace it w/ a atheros card now i don't need ne properitary drivers.
    Originally posted by tanderson
    Are the repositories for the netbook distro the same or equivelant? Would I be surprised to find a common package missing?
    They are the same just like every other *buntu distro
    Originally posted by tanderson
    any other pro's or con's or revelations would be appreciated. Thanks.
    the biggest con i hear from people when they use the netbook is that the kdb and screen are small... other then that it works very well. oh that and GL finding one that comes w/ ubuntu i think Microsoft forced them all to stop that (at least here in the us they are hard to find.)
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      #3
      Re: kubuntu on netbooks. opinions.

      Is it mature enough for her?
      Absolutely. It's plenty mature enough for me.

      Are apps struggling to fit on the smaller screen?
      Nope. As sithlord mentioned all I did was reduce the system font a couple notches.

      Can I just "sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop" (or something similar) to get a ubuntu preloaded netbook to have kde?
      Yup. I started with Kubuntu Netbook Remix and hated the UI so I removed plasma-netbook and kubuntu-netbook-default-settings and installed kubuntu-desktop instead. Works great.

      Did wireless work for you out of the box? Please no ndiswrapper.
      Almost. Broadcom wireless drivers were in restricted driver manager but I had to connect with a wired connection to get them - after that wireless worked just fine. One issue, though - knetworkmanager sucks mightily. Install wicd - don't even bother with networkmanager.

      Are the repositories for the netbook distro the same or equivelant? Would I be surprised to find a common package missing?
      Repositories are the same.

      any other pro's or con's or revelations would be appreciated
      I've tweaked this netbook about as far as I can - and running KDE 4.5SC it uses 166mb of memory at idle - so it'll run just fine on a 1GB netbook but I put a 2GB DIMM in mine anyway. I gave up kwin for compiz as compiz is more configurable and has a smaller memory footprint and I use Google Chrome as a browser pretty much exclusively.

      Flash on Linux is still a work in progress and .flv can be kinda jerky but real video plays just fine.

      Screenshot -

      [img width=400 height=234]http://ebassist.com/pix/netbook.jpg[/img]

      and system monitor - which shows 183mb instead of 166 - but that's still fairly lean.

      [img width=400 height=285]http://ebassist.com/pix/netbook-system-monitor.jpg[/img]

      we see things not as they are, but as we are.
      -- anais nin
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        #4
        Re: kubuntu on netbooks. opinions.

        thanks I feel much more confident.
        FKA: tanderson
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