Size of a 9" netbook and can run Puppy?

[theinfamousj]

For five years I have owned, loved, and run Puppy on an Asus Eee PC 900A. Unfortunately, it appears that I have reached the end of line for my beloved machine. Parts are breaking one after another (first the motherboard, then the keyboard, then ...), and replacement parts are just not easy to come by.

So, I am hoping that someone can direct me to any other setup at all that has the same general dimensions and weight as the Asus Eee PC 900A (the 9XX means that it has a 9" screen diagonal). I'm even willing to compromise and get a tablet and case that contains a separate keyboard. I might also be willing to compromise and go with something with a 10" screen diagonal, but I'd rather not if possible.

My main concern is that I have itty bitty child sized hands. Petite and dainty, I like to think of them as. As a result, I cannot span an octave on a piano with my fingers and so a full sized keyboard is uncomfortable to use as there are times when my fingers have to stretch a rather painful distance to type certain words (I'm looking at you, Macbook keyboards!). The keyboard size of the 900A is absolutely perfect.

So, is there something out there that will meet my needs of being a me-sized machine, but also being one for which I can easily find the necessary drivers so that I can run Puppy if Puppy doesn't already have them built in?

Thank you in advance for your advice.

[smokey01]

I have an Asus 1015PEM and it runs fine with both 32 and 64 bit Puppy OS.

[rokytnji]

Depending on where you are located.

I bought me a M&A companion 9" netbook. Slapped a 64gig ,ZIF 1.8", SSD drive in it. Runs 2 gig of ram with a Atom processor. Internal wirless usb is real tek.


I have a Acer Aspire 9" netbook. 1gig of ram. 160gig hard drive (pata I bet), Atom processor.

I have a dual drive eeepc 900 4/16 gig, 2gig of ram, celeron processor.
Last I have a eeepc 701SD, 1gig of ram,8gig ssd drive.

I test Macpup for runtt21 on all of these netbooks.

Like I said. It depends where you live. Google mwave netbook computer to get a good idea on prices (I see a cheap eeepc 1005HAB and 1000HD)or go with netbooks on ebay. I picked up the M&A netbook on ebay for $112.00 and a spare 6500 mah battery for it at amazon for $8.00 (I got lucky).

Tablets are making the small form factor netbooks disappear. Asus is moving to tablets and has quit making netbooks because there is more money to be made selling tablets.

If you can find a small form factor refurbished IBM X61 model (12" screen but it swivels). That would be killer also. Also. Walmart,Dell,Kmart,Computer Geeks, all sell refurbished laptops as well as newegg,tiger direct, just to name a few.

[starhawk]

Typing this on an ASUS 1000HEB netbook -- 10.4" screen. I'll never go smaller, it feels like I'm using a TI-83+ graphing calculator here!

(My main system -- a Dell Inspiron 6400 with a 15.6" screen, fully twice the size of this netbook -- has the hiccups right now, so this is my fallback machine I guess.)

It's a nifty little netbook, I have to say I'm quite fond of it. Atom N270 CPU, 160gb hard drive. The one upgrade I've ever done (and I'm quite thankful for it) is to upgrade the RAM to 2gb.

Oh, by the way: my first experience with Puppy *ever* (one of Jemimah's Puppeee models, don't know which) was on this very computer.

This particular model is quite rare... the "B" on the end of the model # means that it was only ever sold at Best Buy (Borked Buy?), and from what I can tell it was not a terribly popular sell. My father bought it for me as a gift. (If he'd talked to me first I would've suggested a purchase on Newegg instead -- he'd almost certainly have saved money!) What can I say? It was his way of congratulating me on completing a four-year college degree.

What would I suggest for you? Something very similar. This one is remarkably small -- and from what I understand, the difference between the 7", 9", and 10.4" screen sizes on these netbooks is: the size of the bezel around the screen! The chassis on them should be remarkably similarly sized.

My 18" ruler here (which does inches AND cm/mm) says that my example is 266mm wide, 191mm deep (back of the lid hinge to the front of the palmrest), and something like 55mm thick with the lid closed (estimated!).

It's little!

The only real problem I've ever had with it is that one of the USB ports wore out fairly quickly. The others seem to be far more robust.

Oh, one other thing. When using a mouse not built into a computer (ie something other than a touchpad) I like my mice small. I think my favorite ever is no longer in production -- the Fellowes Mini Web Pro mouse. It's really dinky. My Logitech Tiger Mouse (also small and no-longer-made) is a close second.

One other thing. NEVER EVER EVER buy tech products at Wal-Mart unless you're getting optical media or a can of compressed air (Dust-Off, etc) -- the one time I broke that rule, the item I bought (an Android tablet) went back to the store with problems within a week. Wal-Mart + technology = FAIL.

[jakfish]

I have three netbooks: the Sony Vaio Picturebook (circa 1998) which runs Puppy 4.31 and obviously, I don't recommend it (114mbs of ram) unless you're willing to browse with Links. Phenomenal keyboard.

I have an Asus EEE 900 with a Super Talent 32gb ssd that I quad-boot Win XP Home SP3, Lubuntu 12.10, Semplice 3.0, and Puppeee 1.0. All OSs, except for the dreary XP, run very well. Keyboard can be rickety, but easily fixed with a couple of layers of aluminum foil under the board which slightly raises the keys and *greatly* increases responsiveness.

Finally, I have a Lenovo Ideapad S10-3t, a netvertible with a 10" touchscreen. I quad-boot Win7 Premium, Lubuntu 12.10, Semplice 3.0, and DPup Exprimo 5.14. All OSs run well and I put together a how-to in this forum for DPup and a touchscreen.

Win7 certainly runs better on the Ideapad than XP Home on the EEE 900. The S10-3t has an excellent keyboard and though the machine is several years old, Linux especially lends itself well to the device. But no multi-touch on the touchscreen except in Win7. Multi-touch has always remained elusive on Linux.

After trying them all, Chrome/Chromium is definitely the go-to browser for old netbooks. For email, I like Claws. Puppeee 1.0 can upgrade its Chrome to 10.*, good enough, but if you move to a brand other than an EEE, I would find a puppy with a modern Chromium as the stock browser.

While I run Puppy on all my machines, ultimately, for a netbook, Semplice 3.0 trumps.

FWIW,
Jake