Am wondering if I should just buy a new, low(er) end laptop, to get Windows 7. I have a > 5 year old desktop, with Ubuntu. It works well enough for casual websurfing, which is what I do 99% of the time. I do have Wine on it, which seems to work. But my UPS overloaded the one time it was needed. Also, I play with ham radio, and it seems a good number of people develop on Win7, not Linux.
My > 3 year old Asus 1000 netbook has been great. Perfect traveling size, decent keyboard, screen size is good for carrying around. Except for the FF 3.something upgrade, which brought constant "hanging" after loading a page. It will hang for a second to 5 or more seconds after loading a page. It will also stop for a second or two (while typing on the web) every few minutes. I'm starting to think it's something to do with the SSD. Where it's Xandros I'm not sure what I can load onto it; I'm not even sure how to get Wine onto it. Not sure how Open Office runs (something of a pain IIRC, if only due to very small screen); I don't recall any issues but I generally *only* surf the web on it.
I work at a desktop at work, 8 hours a day, on a Win7 system, doing CAD stuff. I go home, and I'd prefer not to do system mantaince. I hate to say it, despite being an EE; but when home, I just don't want to do computer stuff. Turn it on, turn it off. [I do electronics, not programming.]
Can this netbook, with its lack of cd drive, have a new hard drive put in, and have Win7 put onto it? Or am I better off buying a new netbook--or a small laptop? With Win7 installed, of course. I am tempted to get a cheap tablet, for traveling; but I know that won't do any of the ham apps that I might like to use (logging, psk31).
My > 3 year old Asus 1000 netbook has been great. Perfect traveling size, decent keyboard, screen size is good for carrying around. Except for the FF 3.something upgrade, which brought constant "hanging" after loading a page. It will hang for a second to 5 or more seconds after loading a page. It will also stop for a second or two (while typing on the web) every few minutes. I'm starting to think it's something to do with the SSD. Where it's Xandros I'm not sure what I can load onto it; I'm not even sure how to get Wine onto it. Not sure how Open Office runs (something of a pain IIRC, if only due to very small screen); I don't recall any issues but I generally *only* surf the web on it.
I work at a desktop at work, 8 hours a day, on a Win7 system, doing CAD stuff. I go home, and I'd prefer not to do system mantaince. I hate to say it, despite being an EE; but when home, I just don't want to do computer stuff. Turn it on, turn it off. [I do electronics, not programming.]
Can this netbook, with its lack of cd drive, have a new hard drive put in, and have Win7 put onto it? Or am I better off buying a new netbook--or a small laptop? With Win7 installed, of course. I am tempted to get a cheap tablet, for traveling; but I know that won't do any of the ham apps that I might like to use (logging, psk31).