Netbook

[Anon_F]

Thinking of buying a Netbook to play around with Linux on it.
Do any Netbooks come dual booted with Windows & Linux?
Or do i just buy a Laptop for £150 more and then dual boot.

(I did this on my old laptop, but it only had a 60GB HDD which i've filled!)

Cheers in advance peoples.

 

[Quadophile]

No netbook comes with a dual boot option, you just need to buy one and install linux on it to make it a dual boot with your choice of Linux distro.

Netbooks are without the drive and sometimes you may miss it, I had considered a netbook but after doing research and a bit of thinking I realised it was not for me. I will need a drive always for various reasons. It is just me so YMMV.

Get a Toshiba Laptop in your budget, they offer good price/performance ratio

 

[Anon_F]

OK as not to start a new thread on the subject so re-knewing this one instead.

Have seen a nice netbook that has both windows & android dual booting at john lewis.
But it's out of stock and not likely back instock till mid Jan & they match other shops prices.

So i've looked at other netbooks from £199-250
Or should i stay with toshiba or go acer or hp?
And where's the best place to buy, online or on the hight street?

Or should i spend around £400 and get a fully working laptop to replace my 5year old toshiba that has done sterling work but has died!

Mainly going to use it for getting to grips with linux & open office, so will dual boot it.
Using it wrelessly at home to surf the net and using ms office.

Oh and i'm going to do my homework on it this time and try not to jump at the first bargin i see!!! As i want to get the right one for me!

Any help, advice or guidance most welcome.

 

[EvanDavis]

Or should i spend around £400 and get a fully working laptop to replace my 5year old toshiba that has done sterling work but has died!

In my opinion I would spend that little bit more and get a proper sized laptop. Netbooks are good for using to have a quick browse of something. But if you are wanting to use it to get your head around Linux and Openoffice, the screen size will become a pain in the a*se after a while.

 

[floppybootstomp]

Would agree, Netbooks are fine but not really suitable for starting a learning curve with a different OS, even though you can get an external DVDRW for around £30.

If it were me I'd get a standard laptop within your budget with Win 7 included then load a popular Linux distro such as Mint or PC Linux OS which will make the dual boot setup almost automatically, quite painless.

Personally I'd go for Toshiba, Asus or, as much as I dislike them as a company, Sony, cos they do make good laptops. And as big a hard disk as possible.

Most of the popular Linux Distros will now boot from a USB stick or CD/DVD and run entirely in the computer's memory while it's powered on so you can have a play with the distro before you decide whether to instal it permanently.

Also be aware that the latest Ubuntu distro is purely apps driven, it no longer has the option to use a Windows-based system. If you're happy with that - similar to Mac & Android - fine, but some folk don't like it.

 

[Quadophile]

I agree too with the suggestions from FBS and EvanDavis, get a good laptop, the best you could afford. Toshiba makes great laptops and have many models to suit every budget, If you can get a min 500GB drive, 4GB Ram, and preferably an Intel processor likes of i3 or above you would do OK. Don't worry about sound quality as most laptops have pathetic sound even those which boast about sound quality. You can always get speakers or headphones to take care of that. For portability you cannot beat headphones.

Don't forget to check great deals on Amazon too.

 

[exmoor]

Thinking now of a laptop too after what you have all posted!

 

[Anon_F]

Going to buy in the new year through a friend may not have to pay vat.
That way can buy a bit better i3 laptop with more ram & bigger hdd.

Cheers for all the input peoples.