A Tech Update from DRZ

[Dr. Z]

Thought I would bring you guys "up to speed" as I have been out of the loop here for quite some time.

First of all, I cant remember if I mentioned that due to some epic "windfalls" from various places of employment, myself and my housemates have moved the core of our network to Fibre.

All network-attached storage runs from a fibre switch linked to a Cisco 3550 which then distributes copper gigabit to the rest of the house, in some cases via LACP-enabled aggregated links to avoid bottlenecks anywhere.

Its all housed in the living room in a 24U rack. I'll update this post with pics later on

Moving on...

When my 3 series was stolen, my laptop was in the boot and was also stolen. This was therefore in need of replacement via insurance and I struck lucky (remember I only paid £63 for it!) and they made me an offer which I was happy with: to replace it with:

My new Samsung NC10 Netbook

GORGEOUS little machine - 10.2" widescreen, Intel Atom 1.6GHz CPU, 1Gb RAM, 160Gb HDD, Bluetooth, 6-Cell battery.

Where to start? Comes with XP preloaded but obviously that went by the wayside immediately to make way for Ubuntu which I then applied the Netbook Remix modules to. On XP, it felt fast but on 'buntu it runs like greased lightning. An SSD version isn't available, but I would imagine that if there was it would be even faster again.

The screen is NOT one of those shimmery-shiny x-black/diamondbright style screens and it benefits massively for it. My laptop had a shiny screen and it bugged the hell out of me when using it anywhere other than in an averagely lit room. Outside on a bright day or under strip lights and it was awful - this is useful no matter what. Its very, very sharp too and the colours are just fantastic from it.

The touchpad is a multi-touch affair but it is small enough that you find your fingers slipping off the edge of it a lot, once you get used to it though, its not so bad to use. The keyboard is where it really shines though. The eeePC, MSI Wind, Acer Aspire One and the Toshiba NB100 all have really tiny keyboards set into them. This keyboard is 95% of the size of a normal laptop keyboard and goes right to the very edge of the chassis, making it very, very nice to use indeed.

Battery life is the real runaway selling point of this though. The 6-Cell battery gives a real-world runtime figure of 5-6 hours @60% screen brightness. Thats just phenominal considering what the competition offer - the Aspire manages a little under 3 hours with a much smaller screen and with an SSD instead of a traditional HDD.

Pics to follow, but its worth mentioning that it looks absolutely stunning in the flesh.

Note: For any hackers out there, it uses the single best wifi hacking chipset out there - the Atheros chipset! It means everything like kismet, aircrack-ptw etc etc just work straight out of the box with no messing about and with all features enabled. The Bluetooth hardware sadly does not support monitor mode, so no snooping in on keystrokes for people's wireless kbs and mice which is a shame

[divine]

I'd damn well hope the NC10 was awesome considering it costs the same as a proper laptop

[Garp]

I wouldn't be so sure about SSD drives giving better performance, at least with the netbooks. Most of them are still using the earlier generation, cheaper SSDs and they just don't compare with HDDs, great for seek times but the transfer rates are rather variable. The newer SSDs are the ones that are now surpassing HDDs for performance, but naturally come with a bit of a serious price tag. Those drives are now making an appearance in drive shelves from NetApp and the like (a good indication of quality, reliability and speed)

[NokkonWud]

Glad it's all going well for you now, sounds like a neat little machine.

On the topic of X-Black though, I'd say they are the best screens I've ever used and never had a single problem in any environment at all.

[Dr. Z]

The drive in the Acer Aspire One feels a bit faster than the hdd in mine, not run any measurements to confirm any true data though.

The NC10 is £290-odd depending where you look. For a decent laptop you're looking at £500 or so, so hardly the same cost? You're right about it being pretty damn awesome though

[Dr. Z]

Did I mention the implementation of the FibreChannel SAN? Yes I did... There is a 4Gb FibreChannel SAN in my lounge...

[divine]

Originally Posted by DRZ

The drive in the Acer Aspire One feels a bit faster than the hdd in mine, not run any measurements to confirm any true data though.

The NC10 is £290-odd depending where you look. For a decent laptop you're looking at £500 or so, so hardly the same cost? You're right about it being pretty damn awesome though

Depends what you class as decent, specs or aesthetics and stuff.

Core2Duo, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, 15".. etc. etc. can be had for £350-£400

[Stan_Lite]

Does Ubuntu just work straight off on it DRZ or is there some jiggerypokery to do?

I sold my Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepc to one of the guys on the rig as I was having difficulty with the tiny keyboard and kinda wanted something with a bigger display (mine was one of the crappy, original 701s with the 7" screen).

I've read a few reviews on the Samsung and it looks to be pretty damn good as far as netbooks go. I like that the keyboard is nearly full size and the non-glossy display appeals too. Couple that with a 160GB HDD, bluetooth and excellent battery life and I'm sold.

What's it like for working on the lap? Does it get hot at all?

[Dr. Z]

Ubuntu installed straight off for me, although I have read that people have had issues with it not liking ACPI causing it to hang during install.

However:

Wireless does not work straight away because the drivers that come with it are crap. 2-3 commands later and a couple of files edited and its fine though.

The hot keys for sound work, all of the others (wireless on/off, brightness up/down etc) do not. There are various workarounds for these but I've not bothered - I just don't care!

I've not tested it yet, but there is supposed to be a bug whereby when you plug in headphones it still carries on playing out the speakers anyway. Not sure if there is a fix for that though.

There is a bug in the power-state related brightness controls with is very, very simple to sort, its just a bios setting that you need to change.

If you want to leave Ubuntu looking like normal, thats that - its all done. Netbook Remix is 15 or so very simple commands and a bit of guesswork where the howto leaves some bits out, but I can step you through those if anyone needs me to

[Stan_Lite]

Originally Posted by DRZ

Ubuntu installed straight off for me, although I have read that people have had issues with it not liking ACPI causing it to hang during install.

However:

Wireless does not work straight away because the drivers that come with it are crap. 2-3 commands later and a couple of files edited and its fine though.

The hot keys for sound work, all of the others (wireless on/off, brightness up/down etc) do not. There are various workarounds for these but I've not bothered - I just don't care!

I've not tested it yet, but there is supposed to be a bug whereby when you plug in headphones it still carries on playing out the speakers anyway. Not sure if there is a fix for that though.

There is a bug in the power-state related brightness controls with is very, very simple to sort, its just a bios setting that you need to change.

If you want to leave Ubuntu looking like normal, thats that - its all done. Netbook Remix is 15 or so very simple commands and a bit of guesswork where the howto leaves some bits out, but I can step you through those if anyone needs me to

Thanks dude, sounds good to me. I may be getting one of these in the new year. If I don't get it before I head back to work on the 5th/6th of January, I'll be getting one early February (maybe by then, there'll be workarounds for all those bugs), If I get stuck, I'll give you a nudge

About the only hotkeys I would use would be the ones for sound anyway - My M1710 is the same.