Acer Aspire One Linux Netbook Review


Welcome to Linpus Linux

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This was perhaps one of the greatest transitions for me, since I am much more accustomed to a Windows environment. While this Aspire One runs on the same Intel Atom processor that you’ll find in so many other netbooks, it only has 512MB of RAM. That’s not much, so a lighter OS like Linux is actually more appropriate.

The bootup time was faster than Windows and the overall interface is much simpler. Your netbook life is divided into four quadrants: Connect, Work, Fun, and Files. Each of these contains links to your main programs, like Firefox for browsing and Media Master for music. Each quadrant shows three links at a time, but there are more visible when you click on the corresponding arrow.

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The Wi-Fi connection wizard is simple enough. There’s an icon displayed in the task tray and clicking on it brings up the dialog shown above. This is actually quite convenient, because a new window doesn’t have to pop up for you to choose a Wi-Fi access point.

With Linpus Linux Lite, it takes a little bit of messing around to install third-party applications. For example, getting Adobe Air to run on this was more than a headache for me. That said, the pre-installed stuff will be able to handle most of your tasks, including IM, email, spreadsheets, photo management, and a handful of games.

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