Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Sat, Sep 06, 2008 at 11:48:05PM -0500, Kurt H Maier wrote: Alt+F2 brings up a run dialog in xfce. Yes, but I think this is disabled in the Acer's Linpus Linux. However, you can use search for files (I guess that is using Thunar) to open an xterm as mentioned. As for the manpages: I'd install a different distro anyway. That would necessitate some extra configuration to account for the flash storage (e.g. disabling logging), but I think it is worth the effort. regards Martin
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
David Tweed wrote: On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Matthias-Christian Ott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kurt H Maier wrote: I have a string of thinkpads. The newest model I have is a T43, and after my wife brought home an X41 on loan from her employer I considered buying one. Sure, you can get a used x-series for not much money, but I bought an Acer Aspire One[1] for $300 -- and it's under warranty, I don't have to worry about replacing the worn-out battery, and all the other things that come with a new computer instead of a used one. That's stupid! Even if the battery is nearly unusable, you can still buy a new one instead of buying a new computer (I also heard about people who build their own batteries ;)). Buying a new computer if the old one is not entirely broken just contributes to these huge e-waste dumps in Africa and Asia. FWIW, I still have my old laptop and occasionally use it, but a year ago I got tired of walking around with this heavy thing in my backpack all the time and bought a very cheap UMPC thing with a 7 in screen and support for a USB plug-in keyboard. The machine is much more useful to me because, being lighter, I no longer have to think about if I'm going to be walking too far to want to carry the laptop, the UMPC just automatically goes in my backpack. There are only two problems with the new machine: boot up time, because Linux suspend doesn't work, and because it's so small it can be difficult to use on a train/bus with bright sunlight outside (normal laptops being bigger tend to block out the sun better). It's an enivronmental trade-off: I'm buying new kit but then I don't do all the driving around other people do unthinkingly. The screen works acceptably in a tweaked dwm which automatically assigns a new tag to every opened window, and I can write papers and do programming on it (at least, providing it's not really sunny!) That must be really painful. When I tried to touch type on an EEE PC 700 I often hit two keys at the same time (maybe just because I'm used to an IBM Model M keyboard, but anyhow it seemed unfavourable). I'm aware that some people managed to use the keyboard effectively [1]. I meant this seriously. I didn't touch a EEE PC 1000, but for the EEE PC 700 this is true. I haven't seen someone using this as his development computer or computer for longer works. I work on my 7in PC (primarily using dwm emacs), although train bus travel is sufficiently tiring that about 2 hours is all I can manage. (I also zonk out at about 2 hours reading fiction books whilst traveling.) Additionally I can't understand, why all people started to carry around laptops (what's the difference between laptop and notebook?) with themselves, except they are maybe professionals (programmers, scientists, ...) and travel a lot. I don't have to have a laptop to sit in an internet cafe during holidays. All the world seems to be busy (or at least pretend this) and therefore has to run around with mobile devices (mobile phones, laptops, ...) in order to do their important work. In my opinion these mobile devices are just modern today and people often just buy them and use them in the public for no reason, just to show who they are. It became some kind of status symbol. I've never understood why people who drive have laptops, other than to give client presentations, since they don't have the ability to use them whilst travelling. But on public transport and planes they can make sense if you've got work you can do in a relatively crowded environment. The other minor use is that, having been stranded once during a foreign trip -- the railway line the Eurostar trip home passed by exploding gas cylinders -- and had to book an emergency flight home via the web, I would have been really, REALLY nervous about trusting an internet cafe's computers with my credit card details. I didn't say that portable computers aren't useful (I mentioned programmers and scientists as an example), but the extents of that are far too great. I don't mean computers aren't useful, but a lot of work non-professionals do with their computers could be more or less done with pen and paper (even if it takes a little bit longer). You usually don't need check your E-Mails every hour while you are travelling and in case you really need this, you should ask yourself whether there's something wrong with your job. If your at an airport, just look at the screens of these business men - nearly nobody of them does serious work (or at least I got the impression). You can also observe this at internet cafes or railway stations. When actually ON the train I've observed lots of people writing reports, etc. (Of course, most reports are pointless but then you can say that about lots of paid human activity...) Yes, indeed ;). [1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qjZGbJhcRbY
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Sat Sep 06, 2008 at 12:58:53PM +0200, Martin Sander wrote: Hey. I thought about buying a netbook, too, and here are my two cents: I saw the Eeepc 900 sitting next to a Acer Aspire One in a shop and tried both of them, and I have one major conclusion: If touchtyping is important for you (and I guess it is, otherwise you wouldn't be reading this mailing list), go for the Acer. Or at least try both the Eeepc and the Acer's keyboards. The touchpads are crap of course, but all touchpads are if you ask me. Maybe lenovo wants a share of the netbook market and there will be a thinkpad netbook with a red nipple, that would be nice. As for the small screens: My Thinkpad x21 (1024x768) was the reason I started using dwm in the first place, although I have to admit that I use dwm in a monocle-kind-of way most of the time on that laptop. Btw. if you try the Acer in a shop, try opening a terminal and typing sudo su.. and how do you open a terminal? the only way i could find was opening Thunar (via My Files) and pulling up a location bar and typing /usr/bin/xterm ctrl-alt-f1 etc didnt work.. also their linux distro does not include 'man'!!! yes the aspire one is nice though, i run DWM on mine of course regards Martin
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 11:22 PM, carmen r [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: and how do you open a terminal? Alt+F2 brings up a run dialog in xfce. Kurt
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
I was also thinking about buying one and would be very interested in a programmers point of view. There are reviews around but I'll be using it daily to code and therefore want to hear a programmers opinion. Anselm R Garbe [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. Kind regards, --Anselm -- engin tola - http://cvlab.epfl.ch/~tola
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
Anselm R Garbe dixit (2008-09-05, 10:28): What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. I'm using a HP mininote with monocle, and it seems to be the only usable option on a machine with such a small screen. However I think I have somewhat more resolution on the HP machine (1280x768) on a 8,9 screen. Regards, -- [a] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
I'm using dwm-4.7 on 901, used to use it on 701 for over 8 months. 901's screen is big enough for me, and i am using it as a helper for everydays work as a linux sysadmin. Actually, i use two pc's at once - a desktop case, which is used for xterm and firefox, and 901 - for mail, documents and personal stuff. Both pcs are running dwm and synergy(http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/), which somehow makes my life less annoying. I carry 901 everywhere i go, it's a lifesaver when i'm at clients', but at work i can't use it as main workstation. I tried to use it with external monitor and it was not so bad experience, but i chose option with synergy. What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. Kind regards, --Anselm
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
Greetings, On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 10:28:28AM +0100, Anselm R Garbe wrote: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. I have been using dwm on my eee for like 9 months. It's not a possibility as such, but a necessity to make the eee usable at all (fishing around with a conventional wm with that touchpad is hell). I use the monocle layout. The keyboard is pretty good, but the screen is rather small for daily work imho. I have done some programming on the eee when I had to, but I wouldn't take it instead of my 24 tft and unicomp buckling spring keyboard... The builtin linux is usable on the short run, but kind of annoying if you really want to use it. Debian 4.0 stable distros work with apt, kinda (it will break the builtin firefox, you have to use iceweasel instead). If you're willing to give up the quick boot time, I'd recommend installing your own OS. This will also gain you quite a lot of extra storage space, since the builtin xandros has its default image on a big partition, and stores user stuff and changes by unionfs.. With this, it's possible to quickly reset the factory configuration (by the F9 bootup menu), but you can't remove packages (kde trash) to gain space. Regards, Mate
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
Anselm R Garbe wrote: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. The previous EEE PC models were unusable with dwm (well, pretty much unusable with everything), except maybe monocle. I don't have one (I think these mini-notebooks are just toys and wasted money), but my 17 CRT runs at 1024x768. As far as I know the EEE PC has a resolution of 1024x600, so it's compareable. Working with 1024x768 makes tiling unusable (except maybe with multiple horizontal masters and no stacking area (there were some patches for this some time ago)) and you are forced to use tags as workspaces or use monocle and floating. So as far as I can tell, running dwm on everything 19 or 1600x1200 is painful and does only have some smaller advantages (like code size, keyboard usage, performance) over other WIMP window managers. Therefore save our planet and don't buy these e-waste. Kind regards, --Anselm Regards Matthias-Christian
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
i would prefer a mips one f.ex: gdium.com, hvsco.com On Fri, 2008-09-05 at 11:34 +0200, Engin Tola wrote: I was also thinking about buying one and would be very interested in a programmers point of view. There are reviews around but I'll be using it daily to code and therefore want to hear a programmers opinion. Anselm R Garbe [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. Kind regards, --Anselm
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
2008/9/5 Matthias-Christian Ott [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Anselm R Garbe wrote: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. The previous EEE PC models were unusable with dwm (well, pretty much unusable with everything), except maybe monocle. I don't have one (I think these mini-notebooks are just toys and wasted money), but my 17 CRT runs at 1024x768. As far as I know the EEE PC has a resolution of 1024x600, so it's compareable. Working with 1024x768 makes tiling unusable (except maybe with multiple horizontal masters and no stacking area (there were some patches for this some time ago)) and you are forced to use tags as workspaces or use monocle and floating. Well, I used 1024x768 most of my life and it was very usable for me. All you need to do is using some 10pt font to get some terminals on the screen. So as far as I can tell, running dwm on everything 19 or 1600x1200 is painful and does only have some smaller advantages (like code size, keyboard usage, performance) over other WIMP window managers. Therefore save our planet and don't buy these e-waste. Well give it a try in some shop and I bet you will judge it differently then. I also thought exactly the same about such small pcs that they are unusable and wasted money, but now I think I was wrong after having tested one... Kind regards, --Anselm
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 2:50 PM, Anselm R Garbe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/9/5 Matthias-Christian Ott [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Anselm R Garbe wrote: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. The previous EEE PC models were unusable with dwm (well, pretty much unusable with everything), except maybe monocle. I don't have one (I think these mini-notebooks are just toys and wasted money), but my 17 CRT runs at 1024x768. As far as I know the EEE PC has a resolution of 1024x600, so it's compareable. Working with 1024x768 makes tiling unusable (except maybe with multiple horizontal masters and no stacking area (there were some patches for this some time ago)) and you are forced to use tags as workspaces or use monocle and floating. Well, I used 1024x768 most of my life and it was very usable for me. All you need to do is using some 10pt font to get some terminals on the screen. So as far as I can tell, running dwm on everything 19 or 1600x1200 is painful and does only have some smaller advantages (like code size, keyboard usage, performance) over other WIMP window managers. Therefore save our planet and don't buy these e-waste. Well give it a try in some shop and I bet you will judge it differently then. I also thought exactly the same about such small pcs that they are unusable and wasted money, but now I think I was wrong after having tested one... Kind regards, --Anselm What's the advantage compared to the thinkpad x series? Or is it just because of the price?
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
hiro dixit (2008-09-05, 15:58): right today i came back late in the morning after a lot of free soublaki and retsina and in my bed I booted my x60s, probably to check /me envies the souvlaki and retsina... -- [a] signature.asc Description: Digital signature
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
Kurt H Maier wrote: I have a string of thinkpads. The newest model I have is a T43, and after my wife brought home an X41 on loan from her employer I considered buying one. Sure, you can get a used x-series for not much money, but I bought an Acer Aspire One[1] for $300 -- and it's under warranty, I don't have to worry about replacing the worn-out battery, and all the other things that come with a new computer instead of a used one. That's stupid! Even if the battery is nearly unusable, you can still buy a new one instead of buying a new computer (I also heard about people who build their own batteries ;)). Buying a new computer if the old one is not entirely broken just contributes to these huge e-waste dumps in Africa and Asia. I bought my Computer a month before the Euro was introduced and it still works and no components died. Old components are great. For example I bought a Matrox Graphics G-450 a few month ago for 1€ at eBay and I'm proud to have it working without proprietary Software, or take my IBM Model M keyboard which was manufactured somewhen in the 1980s (It even survived a chemical laboratory - well, I took some hours to clean it ;)). The only argument that I accept against old components is that the performance/power consumption ratio is lower. dwm works just fine on 1024x600 -- I don't understand the people who complain about screen size. I use the same font I used on my 124 dpi T43[2] and I have no problems. But tiling doesn't work effectively on these screens (at least on my screen it doesn't). Anyway, it's (as usual) a matter of personal preference, but this machine is much smaller, lighter, and easier to carry around all day than an X41. I can only assume that calling these machines toys is a deliberate troll. Nobody's claiming that netbooks are desktop I meant this seriously. I didn't touch a EEE PC 1000, but for the EEE PC 700 this is true. I haven't seen someone using this as his development computer or computer for longer works. replacements, but not all of us want to lug a 19 laptop around everywhere we go. A computer's a computer. I didn't say that these netbooks are no computers or have bad performance (I prefer an Intel Atom CPU to a Dual Core processor), I just said, if the manufacturers would build exactly the same machines with bigger displays, the computers would be a good choice - at least currently they are in the majority of cases just toys. Additionally I can't understand, why all people started to carry around laptops (what's the difference between laptop and notebook?) with themselves, except they are maybe professionals (programmers, scientists, ...) and travel a lot. I don't have to have a laptop to sit in an internet cafe during holidays. All the world seems to be busy (or at least pretend this) and therefore has to run around with mobile devices (mobile phones, laptops, ...) in order to do their important work. In my opinion these mobile devices are just modern today and people often just buy them and use them in the public for no reason, just to show who they are. It became some kind of status symbol. If your at an airport, just look at the screens of these business men - nearly nobody of them does serious work (or at least I got the impression). You can also observe this at internet cafes or railway stations. This is why I decided that I won't buy a laptop and otherwise will buy a used one. # Kurt H Maier Regards, Matthias-Christian
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
2008/9/5 Kurt H Maier [EMAIL PROTECTED]: All the world seems to be busy (or at least pretend this) and therefore has to run around with mobile devices (mobile phones, laptops, ...) in order to do their important work. In my opinion these mobile devices are just modern today and people often just buy them and use them in the public for no reason, just to show who they are. It became some kind of status symbol. If your at an airport, just look at the screens of these business men - nearly nobody of them does serious work (or at least I got the impression). You can also observe this at internet cafes or railway stations. I don't see how this relates to whether or not a netbook is a useful tool, or how it relates to whether dwm runs well on one. I see a relation. dwm users do real work ;) --Anselm
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 9:51 AM, Anselm R Garbe [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: 2008/9/5 Kurt H Maier [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I don't see how this relates to whether or not a netbook is a useful tool, or how it relates to whether dwm runs well on one. I see a relation. dwm users do real work ;) In that case: let me assure you, me and dwm get real work done on an 8.9 1024x600 screen every single day.
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
Kurt H Maier wrote: But tiling doesn't work effectively on these screens (at least on my screen it doesn't). I haven't had any problems. I just use bottomstack. OK, this may work somehow (Yes, I tried it). I prefer nmaster with no stacking area (currently I'm running vanilla dwm). By the way is there a reason why dwm has no nmaster by default (even 2wm has this)? All the world seems to be busy (or at least pretend this) and therefore has to run around with mobile devices (mobile phones, laptops, ...) in order to do their important work. In my opinion these mobile devices are just modern today and people often just buy them and use them in the public for no reason, just to show who they are. It became some kind of status symbol. If your at an airport, just look at the screens of these business men - nearly nobody of them does serious work (or at least I got the impression). You can also observe this at internet cafes or railway stations. I don't see how this relates to whether or not a netbook is a useful tool, or how it relates to whether dwm runs well on one. I don't see this too. It was more likely some critical pseudo-philosophic statement that relates to it in the broader sense. In the future just ignore these verbose digressions I make. In this particular sense I just changed the topic from Should I buy an EEE PC 1000? to Is it necessary to have a portable computer?, therefore it doesn't answer the initial question, but maybe can contribute to it's answer. #Kurt H Maier Regards, Matthias-Christian
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 10:28:28AM +0100, Anselm R Garbe wrote: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? I had an opportunity yesterday to try one, and I must admit I'm keen to order one. The keyboard and keys have surprisingly proper size. My Freerunner finally arrived this week and i am considering using a rollable / foldable keyboard which would turn it into a good email reading + writing system for places where a laptop is to big. Regards, Marc -- Marc Andre Tanner http://www.brain-dump.org/ GPG key: CF7D56C0
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Fri, Sep 5, 2008 at 3:25 PM, Matthias-Christian Ott [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Kurt H Maier wrote: I have a string of thinkpads. The newest model I have is a T43, and after my wife brought home an X41 on loan from her employer I considered buying one. Sure, you can get a used x-series for not much money, but I bought an Acer Aspire One[1] for $300 -- and it's under warranty, I don't have to worry about replacing the worn-out battery, and all the other things that come with a new computer instead of a used one. That's stupid! Even if the battery is nearly unusable, you can still buy a new one instead of buying a new computer (I also heard about people who build their own batteries ;)). Buying a new computer if the old one is not entirely broken just contributes to these huge e-waste dumps in Africa and Asia. FWIW, I still have my old laptop and occasionally use it, but a year ago I got tired of walking around with this heavy thing in my backpack all the time and bought a very cheap UMPC thing with a 7 in screen and support for a USB plug-in keyboard. The machine is much more useful to me because, being lighter, I no longer have to think about if I'm going to be walking too far to want to carry the laptop, the UMPC just automatically goes in my backpack. There are only two problems with the new machine: boot up time, because Linux suspend doesn't work, and because it's so small it can be difficult to use on a train/bus with bright sunlight outside (normal laptops being bigger tend to block out the sun better). It's an enivronmental trade-off: I'm buying new kit but then I don't do all the driving around other people do unthinkingly. The screen works acceptably in a tweaked dwm which automatically assigns a new tag to every opened window, and I can write papers and do programming on it (at least, providing it's not really sunny!) I meant this seriously. I didn't touch a EEE PC 1000, but for the EEE PC 700 this is true. I haven't seen someone using this as his development computer or computer for longer works. I work on my 7in PC (primarily using dwm emacs), although train bus travel is sufficiently tiring that about 2 hours is all I can manage. (I also zonk out at about 2 hours reading fiction books whilst traveling.) Additionally I can't understand, why all people started to carry around laptops (what's the difference between laptop and notebook?) with themselves, except they are maybe professionals (programmers, scientists, ...) and travel a lot. I don't have to have a laptop to sit in an internet cafe during holidays. All the world seems to be busy (or at least pretend this) and therefore has to run around with mobile devices (mobile phones, laptops, ...) in order to do their important work. In my opinion these mobile devices are just modern today and people often just buy them and use them in the public for no reason, just to show who they are. It became some kind of status symbol. I've never understood why people who drive have laptops, other than to give client presentations, since they don't have the ability to use them whilst travelling. But on public transport and planes they can make sense if you've got work you can do in a relatively crowded environment. The other minor use is that, having been stranded once during a foreign trip -- the railway line the Eurostar trip home passed by exploding gas cylinders -- and had to book an emergency flight home via the web, I would have been really, REALLY nervous about trusting an internet cafe's computers with my credit card details. If your at an airport, just look at the screens of these business men - nearly nobody of them does serious work (or at least I got the impression). You can also observe this at internet cafes or railway stations. When actually ON the train I've observed lots of people writing reports, etc. (Of course, most reports are pointless but then you can say that about lots of paid human activity...) -- cheers, dave tweed__ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Rm 124, School of Systems Engineering, University of Reading. while having code so boring anyone can maintain it, use Python. -- attempted insult seen on slashdot
Re: [dwm] Asustek EEE PC 1000 Atom 1GB 40G SSD Linux Black
On Fri, Sep 05, 2008 at 10:28:28AM +0100, Anselm R Garbe wrote: What do people think about such an EEE PC as low budget option to run dwm on? Any experiences already if the screen is big enough for daily work? At work, I have 2 19 1280x1024 LCDs running (unfortunately) Windows XP. However, my primary machine at home for email, web browsing, development, and anything else I do is a Thinkpad 600E with 14 1024x768 screen. So, only slightly more vertical space than the 1024x600 EEE PC. I run dwm nearly exclusively in Monocle mode. dwm at a lower resolution is not a problem, although the tiling modes are mostly worthless without hstack/bstack patches. A potential problem with lower resolution are flash-based websites that are hard-coded to expect 1024x768 at a minimum. Without the ability to scroll vertically, some sites/applications become unusable. From a performance standpoint, it really depends what you're doing on the machine. My 600E has a P3-750 and 512mb RAM. I can compile dwm in a few seconds. A recent kernel compile (2.6.23) took about 2.5 - 3 hours. Most of what I do is in a terminal running screen. mutt, elinks, ncmpc, snownews, vim, etc. I use those apps because they're what I prefer. The fact that they are not resource hogs (compared to their GUI equivalents) is simply a bonus. Abiword, Gnumeric, even OO.org occasionally, are all very usable. My main concern about something like the EEE PC is the performance cost of using cheap MLC SSD drives. Read speed is great, but writes can be significantly slower... particularly if you're exceeding the system RAM and needing to page to disk. In Monocle mode, with a full-screen terminal window and terminus 12, I can get 62 lines on screen (status bar showing). Going to a 600 pixel high screen would sacrifice about 13 or 14 lines of text. 48+ lines is still double what we all used back before framebuffer drivers were available at a console. :-) If you're clear about your needs, and reasonable about your expections, I think a UMPC could be a very useful and enjoyable laptop replacement. Regards, Bob P.S. Long time lurker, first time poster - as they say.
