One month of living with an Acer Aspire One and Fedora 10

In January this year I posted of installing Fedora 10 Linux on an Acer Aspire One Netbook computer.

I’ve been living with this combination for a month and thought I would share a few longer term impressions.

Pros

1. It’s still a joy to be able to carry this little computer about easily with no more bulk then a small hardback book. It certainly rings true as portable computer.

2. Thanks to the 4-5 hour (6-cell) battery life, I’ve enjoyed not having to constantly keep track of where the power brick is, or always carry it with me. I ran the Aspire One for a short period with Windows XP and from my impressions there’s not any substantial battery time penalty by running Fedora 10.

3. Wifi reception has been very good and I use it 99% of the time, but I appreciate having a 10/100 RJ-45 Ethernet connection as well.

4. The 8.9 inch CrystalBrite WSVGA backlit LCD display is very sharp and easy to read even when using proportionately smaller fonts. While I would enjoy a 10 inch display I wouldn’t want the over-all dimensions of the Aspire One to be any larger in order to have one.

5. With 1Gb of memory and a 1.6 Ghz Atom processor the Aspire One is a very capable little machine that excels at Internet tasks–email, browsing, messaging and blogging/word processing. You’ll hardly notice any loss of capability when compared to a more powerful laptop.

6. The 160Gb hard drive give abundant space to install multiple operating systems (I’ve configured mine as a dual boot Fedora 10 and Windows XP) and/or to use the storage to transport large amounts of data or files.

7. I’m still a Linux newbie, but I’ve found Fedora 10 with the Gnome Desktop a very stable, easy to use and capable Operating System.

Cons

1. As expected, the graphic performance of the Aspire One is not so good. Video will often pause or have artifacts and any application that requires a large amount of graphic manipulation will be slow. That doesn’t mean you can’t use graphical applications but you’ll have to be willing to accept less then stellar performance.

2. It has taken a while to get use to the size and feel of the keyboard. My typing speed is acceptable but I still find I make more mistakes on the Aspire Keyboard then I would a larger laptop keyboard. This also was expected.

3. There are some minor issues with Fedora 10 and Suspend/Hibernate modes. Sometimes the WIfi will be disabled upon restoring activity and when this happens the only solution I’ve found is to reboot. Perhaps I’ve not found the right setting or configuration–I’m still searching.

Summary

Living happily with the Acer Aspire One in large part depends upon what your expectations were going in.

If you were realistic about it’s limitations you’ll find you have a great little computer who’s size implores you to take it with you.

If however, you actually wanted a more powerful Laptop but settled for the Acer Aspire One due to it’s low price you may have misgivings.

Personally, I like the little fellow and Fedora 10 works well! ;-)