Netbook’n It

Tomorrow, I’m book’n it to an annual meeting in DC. This will be my first trip with my Lenovo S10 netbook. Well, actually, it’s my second trip but the first since I loaded it with Ubuntu and extra memory and really got the machine setup for use. The S10 is a decent netbook, meeting a number of criteria I perceived I might require in such a small machine:

1. Hard drive – SSD would be best suited for day to day use but I’m constantly finding myself wanting to try other operating systems. I needed enough space to have multiple boots and load up crazy applications I can’t seem to avoid, such as GRASS.
2. Usable keyboard – I don’t want to share the number of times I’d handled netbooks of friends and in the stores trying to find one that felt good enough for more than occasional use.
3. Webcam – I do a number of H.323 video conferencing calls. I’ve also been known to use Skype on occasion.
4. Inexpensive – I’m cheap.

About a month ago, I ran into a couple of interesting folks that had S10s, in fact they were running OSX and were actually getting things done. So, when I ran across a great deal, I figured it must be destiny.

As soon as I received the machine, I placed an order for a 2GB stick of RAM, and quickly became frustrated with the installed WinXP. So I created a USB thumb drive Ubuntu installer via usb-creator on my desktop and made backups of the installed WinXP and recovery partitions with Partimage. As much as I envied folks running OSX on netbooks, I couldn’t imagine dealing with some of the issues I’ve had with utilizing the full screen in Mac software. For instance, even with the Safari 4 beta, I can’t count on being able to maximize and utilize all the screen real estate. With netbooks, 1024×600 is a precious amount that shouldn’t be wasted.

Between the small screen and the tiny trackpad, navigating is highly sensitive. Pulling up menus, especially those that cascade, quickly became a frustration. Luckily, I recalled hearing about the Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR). It didn’t take long for me to find their wiki and dive in.

Essentially, UNR is a set tools/programs and configuration changes to make the most use of the small screen and interfaces on netbooks. The specific list goes into more detail but at its core, it moves menus to a launcher on the desktop, runs a daemon that automatically (and smartly) maximizes all windows and improves individual window selection. It doesn’t sound like much, but it dramatically enhanced my appreciation for the melding of software with hardware, Ubuntu with S10.

Here I am, on the eve of a trip with a very usable netbook running almost 100% open source software and feeling great knowing that I’ve eliminated a significant amount of weight from my shoulders without reducing much of what I can accomplish.