Linux still not ready
XP is still king on the Cloudbook…in my mind. I’ve been itching to go back to Linux (either the stock distro, or a custom install of another flavor), but I fear doing it. Why? Other than some sluggishness with XP when there’s extreme disk activity and some of the bloat of it….it’s been working flawlessly for me.
All of my hardware works, all of my apps work, it plays nicely with external displays. If it wasn’t for the bloatiness of XP and the virus/spyware scanners I have to have on there, this thing would be zippy enough for me all the time.
But sometimes I still wonder if it would run better with Linux back on it. I know I could get all my apps I want working on there under Linux. Skype, Firefox, etc..etc. They have versions for both platforms. Not a problem there, plus I use a lot of stuff up in “the cloud” on the Internet. But always wonder if the “experience” would be zippier using all of this stuff.
Well, I still hear there’s issues with drivers for the video hardware under Linux for the Cloudbook…I haven’t dug into it much yet, but I know the stock Linux install for the Cloudbook used a framebuffer driver, which has horrible performance. Plus it doesn’t support larger resolutions for external displays, doesn’t support squished resolutions for the stock LCD panel, and doesn’t support dual-displays.
THAT alone is enough of a deal-breaker for me on the Linux side not to run it. Couple that with some questionable wireless support for the Realtek hardware in the Cloudbook, and really is it worth it to put myself into the situation of trying to make stuff work, when under Windows XP it just does work? Of course, this wouldn’t be possible without drivers supplied from Everex or some of the other companies that make clones of these VIA-based UMPC’s. Just looks like Everex is more interested in supporting drivers for Windows XP than they are for Linux. Hence, well…Windows just plays ball with the hardware better than Linux does.
I posted an open question to the forums over at what used to be Cloudbooker.com (guess the Cloudbook wasn’t popular enough to keep the name up), and got virtually no response from the community over there. The one single response I did get was “Why? The disk drive is large enough for both.” So what. My Dell Latitude’s drive is large enough for like 10 installs of different OSes. Doesn’t mean I want to run 10. His answer basically tells me that Linux isn’t really ready still, so you may want to just dual-boot and use Linux to toy with, and XP for the real work.
I’m not a Linux-hater at all. I want to run the OS. But I also want to be able to use it. If there’s no drivers out there at all that support the video hardware…this is no deal then. I’m not using the Framebuffer or VESA drivers for Xwindows on this thing and basically crippling the experience simply to run a super-cool, open-source, free OS that you can customize however you want. Bleh! I’ll leave that to the VM’s I use at work.
So, I’m probably going to leave XP on it for now, even if it is bloated and seems to sometimes crawl due to disk activity from the OS and other stuff installed. It still comes off to me as way more functional and usable for every day stuff than Linux. On other PC’s I don’t mind wrestling with Linux to make it do things I want to do, but the Cloudbook is my main device right now, and wherever I pop it open I want it to work. Whether it’s at Panera Bread over wifi, or at home on an exernal monitor at 1280×1024 with 7 USB devices plugged into it and a wired LAN connection, or just sitting on my recliner using Skype with the built-in video camera. Maybe if someone can tell me how to load up the stock Cloudbook.ISO on an SD card, I’d dual boot that way, but I’m not carving up my little 30GB disk just to dual boot two OSes for the fun of it. No need for two OSes on the same device, I just want one on there that works.
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