Acer Aspire One D250 with Android Installing a second operating system on a PC is nothing new. Plenty of manufacturers have done so before, building a slimline Linux distro into their machines to provide a much more rapid start-up than Windows can manage: full access to the internet within seconds of pressing on power key. Acer Aspire One D250 with Android …
I love Android, I think it's brilliant however your article sounds very negative towards it, and rightly so.
This scenario bugs me. Android is a "smartphone OS", it is designed for SMALL screens, it runs everything full-screen, it is designed with limited input in mind (fingers and a few buttons).
But because it's open source, and can easily be made to run on x86 hardware, manufacturers feel the need to and this is the result, a platform that just doesn't quite fit and it makes Android look bad.
It's a bit like sticking Windows Mobile on a device with a 17" screen, of course it's going to look rediculous, and having everything full screen - since the intended hardware screens are too small for useful windowing.
I've not used an iPhone, but I imagine the iPhone OS would feel equally as awkward on a large resolution device.
Why would Android have NTFS support? How many phones have you come across with Windows partitions? I'm actually impressed it supports USB media.
They should have at least provided a custom "Launcer" application (desktop / app slider) that works and looks at least somewhat respectable with that resolution, rather than sticking to the stock launcher.
Anyway I'm done ranting.
FAIL for manufacturers using Android on unintended hardware, not your article which is spot on IMO.
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Andy, if you can't build your own machine from a motherboard and case, or buy a white-box laptop (they do exist) with no OS, then you probably DO need the support of having Windows on it - I mean really, this is simple stuff, there are "For Dummies..." books on it. If using a screwdriver and plugging cable A into port B and drive C is too hard, then pay Mr. Gates. Just be glad Win 7 is better than previous attempts, and upgrade to it if you haven't already. Or buy a Mac...
I would write more, but I'm busy trying to get my laptop (to which I just added a 320G drive and 4G RAM) running VMWare Workstation 7.0 under Ubuntu 9.10 so that I can run Windows 7 virtual machines (no kidding) for when I need them for client work. As that is a currently unsupported configuration for VMWare, I have to get back to patching VMWare and recompiling my kernel. I am sure I could be having more fun on a Saturday night...but at least I ain't moaning about a MS tax...lol.
1. Get more ram so you don't have to swap.
2. Get rid of the winchester. 30+G SSD's aren't too pricey now. Indilinx are usually good. Intels are (were?) costly. Do a bit of research. I think Anandtech has a couple of good write ups, if I remember correctly. Once you've tried an SSD, you'll never want a winchester again.
3. If you must run windows, consider turning off the swap file and un-needed services.
4. Ditto with linux.
5. Linux is better, you don't even need to start a gui by default.
6. Use a less burdensome window manager if you use linux. Some like flux, I like xfce.
7. If you're a windows head and want to make a safe-ish tread into linux, try Xandros Presto. It ain't half bad, boots really quite fast, coexisting quite peacefully with windows on the HD, and quite easy to get rid off. You have access to your windows drive from it, so don't trash it.
*** I haven't tried the reviewed PC set up, but I've seen xandros boot up in/around 10 secs on an SSD by _default_ ***
Caveat Emptor: Xandros Presto is NOT freeware but it is free to try. You make up your own mind if it's good enough to keep. IMHO by default it's not a good enough distro for heavy work but you can hack it quite a bit and it's not quite unfamiliar territory as it appears to be quite a cut-up Debian 5.
8. Mac OS X? Hmm... Dunno.
To quote Andy directly : "? I don't want one of these machines, or any fecking desktop, laptop etc, with Windows on it".
Sounds like he was talking about all kinds of boxes (not just netbooks, eh?), and you can buy all kinds of boxes including netbooks without Windows either white label or DIY.
Do try to keep up, and stop staring at goats...you make them nervous...
As a Tmobile G1 user. i know i can INSTALL A FILE MANAGER AND use it to BROWSE the the phone SD CARD plus u can create differents PARTITIONS on the SD card.i never had a chance to play with ANDROID in the netbook/desktop computer yeaht,because the OS is not ready yeaht to be downloaded, BUT I`M 100% SURE that if u install the FILE MANAGER u`ll be able to SEE and ACCESS THE ROOT OF THE C: DRIVE. also I`m SURE u can PLAY VIDEO with ANDROID.
U GUYS SHOULD HAVE LOOKED AT THE ANDROID MARKET FOR ANY ADDITIONAL APPS.
http://www.androidtapp.com/astro-file-manager/
http://www.freehtc.com/Android+File+Manager
http://www.androidtapp.com/linda-file-manager-formerly-android-file-manager/
http://www.lysesoft.com/products/andexplorer/index.html
I really like the Acer Aspire One 10" with 6 cell 5800mh battery I have. Unfortunately the promised 6cell Linux version of the netbook never quite arrived so I ended up buying the XP version. (I loaded Fedora on it and have been quite happy with its performance.) Especially the 7.5 hr battery life.
For me to get another Acer netbook it would have to provide 8+ hr battery life, a vertical display resolution higher than 600, and Linux instead of some version of Windows would definitely help tip the scales toward upgrading... (The only reason I got the last one with XP is reports that Microsoft hand reduced OEM cost to as low as $5 each in an attempt to "win" the market back from Linux.)
Why the "justice department" does not prevent the Microsoft monopoly from "rice gouging" or keep Intel/Microsoft from strong-arming vendors into providing only low-RAM, low resolution display versions of netbook is also disturbing...
What can I say? - We in the US have the best government that money can buy... (Too bad only some of us seem to believe our representation should not be for sale...)
"Why would Android have NTFS support?" Well, hmm... maybe because Linux has had NTFS support since 3 days before forever. Kind of ridiculous that a free, open-source module couldn't come pre-installed to support this. And what if you want to plug in a USB hard drive formatted with NTFS? Just stupid. If I read the article right, you can access the Linux partition from Windows and Windows has always needed an add-on to access EXT2 or 3 partitions, so this is even more inexcusable.
All in all, sounds like a slapdash effort at best.
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