[ubuntu-in] Netbooks - suggestions and advise

[Ramnarayan.K]

Many questions some answers

Ok the machine i got is the Samsung N 148 Plus

I have successfully installed linux mint 10 (yes not Ubuntu, sorry
about that) but mint is rather a bit more full featured)

It cost Rs 16 K - with VAT etc. and 1 year warranty and 160 gig HD

Came preloaded with Freedos and a Freedos CD as well.

The battery is 4400 mAh and this works for 4 to 4.5 hours .

However the real killer hard ware spec is the processor

Processor	4x Intel(R) Atom(TM) CPU N550 @ 1.50GHz

The older N 148 which i was asking for is no longer in production,
this is the model that came.

I suppose we could like with smaller HD and faster processor (no idea
yet on power consumption)

RAM is  1 Gig (1015 MB)

It does not have a hard ware wifi on / off switch.

3 USB ports, 1 SD card port, 1 VGA output , 1 ethernet port, 1 mic, 1
headphone jack.

Touch pad is nice - takes some getting used too, it does not seem to
have a side scroll option (unless its the software that does that - am
not sure)

the keyboard is about 88 % of a regular (Lenovo thinkpad) keyboard.
The Tab key is half size (a pain to start with but ok i suppose as use
becomes regular).

Under mint the Fn Brightness and volume keys do not work  but also
cause the keyboard to freeze. There is a bug (which i think applies to
Ubuntu as well since under a live version of Ubuntu (Ultimate) the
same freezing behaviour happened.

Screen - its really clear and bright - did not yet test it out on the
sun (as claimed by Samsung) but definitely a good screen to go by.

Have not yet tested the webcam -

**
Installation

Used unetbookin to create a live usb stick and ran that for an initial
live session.
Then used gparted to partition  to resize and create partitions.
The original partitioning came with half formatted to freedos and the
other half unformatted (74 Gig) The freedos partition is W95 Fat 32,
originally it was occupying 48 MB of space, i gave it 110 MB, but that
seems to have destroyed the freedos system and it won't go there any
more .

To engage the USB stick one needs to access the bios F2 and change the
boot to reflect the USB media (if its not plugged in it does not show
up on the boot options).

Mint install didn't take much time, definitely less that 25 minutes.
Had to install wvdial (used apton on a live mint session under virtual
box) to get internet working.

Am right now working on resolving the fn key issues.

Another issue is the power indicator, the default gnome-power-manager
does not enable showing of % or time. Presently one has to click on
the icon to know what (time only) is remaining.

AT present a tonne of updates are happening, once thats done then i
can resolve the fn key issues as well as check the webcam.

ram
On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 3:39 PM, Kingsly John <member+ubuntu at kingsly.net> wrote:
> +++ Ramnarayan.K [2011-02-01 13:13:00]:
>
>> after finding out and follow up with various agencies we've shortlisted the
>> Samsung N 148 1. “Looks like it’s worth it.” Try it. - NP-N148-DP05IN -
>> Mini Notebook - Notebook | SAMSUNG. at
>> <http://www.samsung.com/in/consumer/pc-peripherals-printer/notebook/mini-notebook/NP-N148-DP05IN/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=feature>
>>
>
> Have you picked up/used said netbooks? Any feedback?
>
> Their website says...
>
> "A 6 cell battery, delivers up to 13.5 hours* (6 cell 5,900mAh)/10.0 hours*
> (6 cell 4,400mAh*) of power to keep you running all day long."
>
> Which battery are they shipping with by default? (Does the 5900mAh one cost
> extra?)
>
> Is the battery life close to advertised numbers?
>