Sweet!  Finally got one!

So, if you’ve been reading my blog you’ve probably figured out I have a Nokia N810 Internet Tablet… and that I love it!  It’s a great little device that you can load a full debian or Ubuntu linux on, and be on the move.

Unfortunately, it’s very small, and the qwerty keyboard on it was not really designed for long sessions of typing.. and I am not a fan of the onboard keyboads.  So while the N810 is wonderful for quick trips here and there, living in the pocket.. I really needed a machine that could be the “main” workstation at home.

I didn’t want a big, normal laptop because after several years in the navy and hauling 15″+ laptops in and out of some really harsh places.. I just don’t like carrying those around anymore; enter the Netbook market!

After reading some reviews online between the Acer, Asus, and Dell netbooks.. I decided on the Acer.. and picked up one at my local Walmart!  It said 120GB HDD and came with Windows XP Home (wow-yuck?).  Of course, the first one I brought home wouldn’t boot.  Just my luck right?? It went straight to “No Boot Device – Press any key.”  And in the BIOS it wouldn’t identify a HDD being installed at all.

So I immediately took it back to Walmart and replaced it with another one.  This one booted and worked fine so I took it home.  I then realized it had a 160GB HDD in it.  Something got mislabelled somewheres, but I’m not complaining.  It works.

So I booted into Windows, went “Aww how cute”.. and immediately connected an external CD-ROM drive and pursued to load Ubuntu Linux according to this Step-By-Step and the Ubuntu Wiki.  Still going through it, but got the wireless working pretty quickly, and of course – This post is being made on my new Acer Aspire One while sitting in bed watching TV.

This thing is great!  Small, light, and the keyboard was extremely easy to get used to.  Still working on this ridiculous mouse layout… but I have to agree with Acer here, better to sacrifice the mouse than the keyboard IMHO.

Sorry this post doesn’t have any pics, will post some later.  I’m just up tinkering with my new toy and just wanted everyone to know that this is one sweet little laptop!!! (Until something breaks, of course :))