Tuesday, December 1, 2009

My Netbook OS Search

My EeePC is my personal miniature PC that resembles much closest to my 14" notebook.  Although it's keyboard is tiny I can still manage to touch type.  I resorted to Linux as my OS since this is virus free and is as fast as Windows XP during operation.  I installed Easy Peasy from the Ubuntu for netbooks project.  It works just fine before until I got my Sun Wireless Broadband.  I have difficulty having the Huawei E1550 to work in Linux.  That is why I opted for other stable but light Operating Systems built for netbooks.  First I upgraded the Easy Peasy to the latest version thinking that the upgraded version has fixed the compatibility problems with new devices such as the Huawei E1550.  Although the modem worked sometimes, it really is quite a dissapointment sometimes when the OS couldn't recognize it properly.  So I decided to go back to Windows.  I looked for a lite version of Windows XP on the internet and downloaded a copy just to see how it would work on my device.  But it seems that the installer was so stripped down that it cannot install the Huawei modem sucessfully.  That was the point that i decided to try Windows 7 on my netbook.

The installation took overnight (because I have fallen asleep during installation) and by the morning the set-up was done.  My first impression is that it is kinda slow, but to think that this is a netbook then that would justify it's slowness and besides I installed the Ultimate edition.  The OS automatically disabled the aero thing to catch up with the processor speed and that kinda gave me the idea of disabling them all.  I optimized the performance by disabling effects and used the old traditional Windows theme.  There was a significant improvement in the performance and I am seeing improvements as time progressed.  But there is one more thing that needed to be tested before the OS would satisfy my standards, that is to play Youtube videos without skipping.  At first I connected to a nearby Wifi hotspot and typed the Youtube URL in the built-in Internet Explorer.  There were a bit of skipping on the beginning scenes but the movie went smoothly as soon it got loaded.  It's kinda fair already and it seems that it is the OS that I need, not until I tried my Sun Broadband Wireless USB modem.  It seems that Internet Explorer and Firefox kinda have noticable lags upon launch and the Youtube videos were no longer playing the same way when I was connected to a Wifi hotspot.  That made me decide to switch again to another OS, but now I decided that it would be Windows XP since this is the most stable OS that Microsoft built since Windows 95.  Besides, only XP drivers are available in the ASUS support website.  After a gruesome ground zero installation, finally I got the OS that I want for my netbook.  I had no problems with the internet connection since Wifi and SBW works fine in this old Microsoft OS.  And for unwanted viruses and malwares, I installed Deep Freeze so when my system is penetrated I just restart and everything goes back to the first installation.  So I think I'm going to settle myself with this OS and begin my work and leisure in complete harmony.  No more lagging Youtube videos, and hardware incompatibility.

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