[MLUG] netbooks / laptops

[hendrik at topoi.pooq.com]

On Thu, Mar 05, 2009 at 06:09:38PM -0500, Jeremy wrote:
> David Pelletier wrote:
> > Thanks for the info. I guess I should have ordered from ncix.com 
> > <http://ncix.com> from the beginning... I have the bad habit of 
> > wanting to help local commerce. I canceled my order with micro-bytes 
> > (they couldn't get it) and started looking for other laptops, because 
> > ncix was showing an ETA of march 24th... then I was lucky and all of a 
> > sudden 10 blue 1000HEs appeared in stock, and I found a coupon with 
> > redflagdeals that lowered the price to 449$. With taxes and shipping, 
> > it's even cheaper than it was at micro-bytes. I instantly placed an 
> > order and now I expect it next week... I'll then get to work on that 
> > Debian install report ASAP. ;)
> Waiting for the debian report, but seriously, this is a super sweet OS 
> for the eee http://www.eeebuntu.org/ I have the NBR version on my first 
> gen model and it runs beautifully, and hey, it looks beautifully too :) 
> It is a 'real' (full) ubuntu 8.10 install, with a custom kernel and 
> various patches to make stuff work (they just pinned the important stuff 
> and added a ppa repo). The NBR version uses the nice netbook interface 
> (takes some getting used to, but I like it on small screens).
> 
> At the least, I would say give it spin as a liveUSB distro.

Interesting.  But the one question I have about eeebuntu is: how free is 
it?  The web page you refer to mentions a custom kernel.  So to get the 
most out of the eeepc, have they provided various binary blobs to 
drive the hardware?  Are we going to have trouble a few years hence, if 
there's no truly open source version of those binary blobs?

That's why I'd like to have an installation report on how usable Debian 
is on that machine, that is, Debian withoug nonfree anything.  If it 
drives the hardware adequately, including the power management that's 
all-important on a portable, the I'll have no qualms about getting one 
of these machines for long-term use.

Trouble maintaining nonfree software will be resolved by the appearance 
of free software, but only if necessary interfacing specifications are 
available.  

At the application level, there's no problem with that.  People write 
software all the time to satisfy their real needs, and bypass secret 
interfaces.  At the driver level, it's another kettle of fish 
entirely.

If eeebuntu is really free, that's great.  But I don't really *know* 
that eebuntu is really free.  I do know that Debian-without-nonfree is 
free.

-- hendrik