Small notebook platforms. [was: Re: self-serving redeux/revisited, and more questions?]

[Chris Whitehouse]

Gary Kline wrote:
> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 12:42:00PM -0700, Gary Kline wrote:
>> On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 09:18:55AM -1000, Al Plant wrote:
> 
>>>> i have another issue that has more to do with freebsd on the new and
>>>> lost cost notebook computers i had heard of.   how many and which ones
>>>> work best with our flavor of BSD.  turns out that sometimes things-ubuntu
>>>> fail, and i need something failsafe and with a keyboard.  i'll explain
>>>> later, but if i can use a lightweight computer that has audio with the
>>>> kde apps, i can create a reasonably priced tts or speech synthesizer that
>>>> would be accessible to a great many people.  instead of the $8-9 kilobuck
>>>> windose devs.
>>>>
> 	[[ munch ]]
> 
>>> I hear some people on the list have FreeBSD on Asus Eee net books and it 
>>> is working well.
>>>
> 	
> 	[[ munch ]]
> 
> 	okay. i'm on the eeepc.asus.com site. but don't see much info on
> 	the spec.  i bot asus once years ago and the motherboard crapped
> 	out on me after a year.  but by now, should be more reliable.
> 
> 	anyway, i see only wireless, and i'm cat5 only.  i've got a
> 	13-yr-old people here who would love for me to go wireless so
> 	said people could take her apple macbook into her bedroom and so
> 	on.  well, said people need to be not hiding-in-room, in my 
> 	opinion as said people's father.  so is there any other cute
> 	notebooks like this "EEe Pc" that have cable?
> 
> 	oh, and this tiny thing doesn't look big enough to have any
> 	speakers.  since the main point of this experiment is to allow
> 	typing onthe kde tts apps and have voice output, a speaker is a
> 	must-have.
> 
> 	feedback, you guys?
> 
> 	gary
> 
> 	ps: the 7" deal is serious cute, but the kybd is tiny and while i
> 	have no hand tremor or anything, i'd probably fat-finger most
> 	keys.  anybody have the small asus?
> 
> 
> 
There's a wiki devoted to FreeBSD on Asus eee
http://wiki.freebsd.org/AsusEee

last edited 2009-05-31

I personally think Asus desktop motherboards are going downhill, based 
on my very small sample of two old ones going strong and one recent one 
defunct, plus that funny marketing smell that creeps in - "Rock Solid, 
Heart Touching" geez. On the other hand the guys in the component level 
laptop repair shop I had to take my HP laptop to recently, told me they 
get fewer Asus laptops in for repair than anything, even thinkpads. 
(They get mostly HP :-< )