Long Journey-Long Post on Dell Mini 9 Alternative
i've been playing around with a Dell Mini 9 for several months now. Since that time I've had Dell's version of Ubuntu, Ubuntu Jaunty (9.04), Windows 7 and yeah I even tried the Hackintosh route.
Dell's version works well out of the box. It is behind the regular releases I assume to make sure updates work on their hardware without problems. But it uses an architecture that does not support a majority of the software downloads unless you convert them. I found this to be a PIA.
The Ubuntu 9.04 is nice. Not as battery friendly as Dell's version. Both the Dell version and 9.04 both seem to take a while to join a wifi network. Nothing horrible, but longer than I used to with my Mac. I've actually come back to it as I think overall it is the best OS for the Mini 9. Sorry for the spoiler. If you use Ubuntu you are going to have to roll up your sleeves a little and get into the culture. But as long as you are not looking for a total appliance instead of a computer then you will find their community very supportive. Oh, the hibernation is now working in the release version, and I really like that. It gives me the option of leaving the netbook unplugged for several days and not picking up a totally discharged laptop.
Windows 7. I had that on the Dell Mini 9 for about two weeks (I did two fresh installs trying to figure out the slow down problem). At first I praised it, but over time it seemed to get slower and slower. Probably because of the anti-virus applications I was running. I tried three different anti-virus applications, one at a time. I'm just guessing that they were the reason for the performance drop-off. I could be wrong, but there is no way I'd run Window without protection. Safari had issues with their dock hiding option, Firefox was good but it got the slows over time. Took way too long to boot (over time) and seemed to hang a lot. The OS pop up warnings really got old. I did dial them down, then I started to wonder if I was missing a serious warning that I should know about. I'm not trying to be troll on my own posting. Using Windows for me was like running in sand on the netbook. Maybe the experience would have been better on a more powerful laptop? The actual GUI was good, but still seemed to branch out in way to many ways even after two weeks of daily use.
I loved having iTunes, and Safari Windows versions on the netbook. But the two times I put Windows 7 on it the slow downs occurred. Note Windows 7 is supposed to be SSD friendly. I had both a Dell 16GB and a Runcore 32GB in the netbook. By the way I upgraded the netbook to 2GB Kensington Hyper-X memory. So every OS I tried had plenty of memory.
Hackintosh. Well it seemed like where I really wanted to be OS wise. But the netbook ran way, way too hot. The hack I had indicated that sleep would be an issue. Maybe there are newer hacks out there that would support sleep. I don't know but like I said the heat seemed like it could get problematic, also battery life didn't seem very good. I didn't have it on the machine long enough to really check on battery life. Overall performance was less than the two flavors of Ubuntu I've tried and Windows 7 beat them all battery wise. Maybe there are tweaks that might make this a good alternative for some people? But I find this counter-intuitive for people who thrive on the simplicity of maintaining the official Mac OS on an Apple hardware.
If Apple did a netbook or tablet I'd be all over that in a minute. I do like the Dell Mini 9 with Ubuntu 9.04. Too bad Dell just killed it in favor of a 10" and 12" netbook. Don't get me started about how Microsoft is seemingly calling the shots on what hardware can be put on those newer netbooks.
I've found the Dell Mini 9 a great option when my iPhone won't do and I don't want to carry the MBP around. Oh, the small keyboard size is pretty awkward to use. That is the one big criticism I have of the Mini 9. But if you want small you have to understand there are compromises. Maybe other netbook brands have solved this?
If you want good advice and tech. support on Dell Mini's and Linux go here:
http://mydellmini.com/
http://www.ubuntumini.com/
So, for me I hope the Dell Mini 9 lives long enough for Apple to come up with solution that gives us a netbook alternative.
Try Amazon. Never had a problem with that site. Love it.
