The Linux Solution: Eee PC 1005ha

[MetalMuzic]

Hello world, I have a perplexing predicament (try saying that 5 times fast). My Eee PC 1005ha has decided to throw my current installation on Windows XP Home Edition out of the window. I was already considering a version of Linux to take it's place, as I'm quite fed up with Windows anyway. I've heard lots of talk about Ubuntu and OpenSUSE, and those are the only two really mentioned, but what, in your opinion, is the best Linux Distribution for my netbook?

Thanks in advance...

[ThisIsNot]

In all honesty, you are going to have to figure this out for yourself. There are people that will scream at the top of their lungs that Ubuntu is the best Linux distro, there are others who swear by Red Hat, some that still cling to the command-line driver distros of old, and so on. You are just going to have to download, install them, and try each one to see which is the best for you.

You should also know that your program compatibility is going to drastically decrease when using Linux and you can kiss having native driver support for most devices goodbye.

[squelchy451]

The new unity interface used by linux forced me to chuck it out the window. Linux mint is a great distro based on Ubuntu, and if you get the LXDE version, it's really lightweight and takes less than a minute to boot up!

[JesterEric]

Download Unetbootin on another machine and test out a bunch of distributions.

I run Peppermint One on my EEE 900 and Kubuntu (ubuntu 10.10 with a KDE GUI) on my 1005. The nice thing about various distributions is that they really are meant to suit lots of tastes, not just one-size-fits-all. Peppermint is cloud based, light and fast. Kubuntu is more about the eye candy and is set up to do more office type stuff.

Both are based on ubuntu, which is probably the most user friendly version of linux around (er that should be beginner-friendly). But the latest version of Ubuntu (Natty Narwhal) and the unity interface has met with some resistance.

I'd recommend something like Mint, Peppermint, or Kubuntu--which are ubuntu distros that have been "polished" if you will. More importantly, look for something based on Ubuntu 10.04 (Lucid), which is the long term support distribution for Ubuntu (2013). That should help with most issues.

As for native driver support, this is generally true, but most netbooks are not using cutting edge tech, and linux distros have pretty much caught up. I've had little issues with Kubuntu working out of the box with my EEEs.

[SaturnGuy]

I know you said you are about fed up with windows. I have found Windows 7 to be stable on my 1005ha running on 2Gig of memory and just as fast if not faster than XP. Stable all day long. ASUS has the drivers you can download from their website.

[davebrian]

My netbook shipped with windows 7 starter and I must say its no less than windows xp or linux. Not much change in battery life though