Getting the AOD250 - ideas and questions (updated)

Hello Aspire One users!

This month I'll be getting an AOD250, and there are lots of things I wanna know. I've read a lot all over, but some things are still not clear enough, and about some, I'm just not confident enough.

Background:
I'm a medium-to-heavy desktop user. All laptop I've had were either 5 years old, or owned by my office and restricted accordingly. About a year ago we got a ZG5 for my brother, and as the technical member of the family, I had plenty of time with it, and got real impressed. I originally thought of getting a ZG5 as well, but after seeing they are no longer available, I also realised that the D250 is about the same weight and volume, with a bigger screen, and still for a very good price, so I'll be going for it:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/6 ... tbook.html

Here are the issues I'm still wondering about:

1. Dual boot and Linux:
On my brother's AA1 I've installed Kuki, (http://www.kuki.me/), (on top of XP), Which is an AA1-designed Linux. It created a partition for itself and installed Grub. Over all, it all ran pretty smoothly, so I'm asking:

-How come I'm seeing nothing about Kuki here in the forums?
-What's up with all of the threads about how to multi-boot? Is it just about managing without a DVD drive? If I'm using an external drive, isn't it just as simple as having Grub and installing different OS on different partitions? (I'm planning on having just one Windows version, but I'd be happy to try out a variety of Linux distros).
-Considering I'm likely to use mainly Windows, should I just forget about Dual-booting and just use Linux on a stick if I really need it?


2. The Windows hidden partition:
I was thinking of removing the Windows installation hidden partition for the space and for having a lighter drive for cloning.

-Will there be a problem doing that?
-If I first clone (So far I've been using http://clonezilla.org/) the drive with the hidden partition, will I be able to recover it later?
-are there any benefits for the Acer's Windows over any other distribution? If so, will I be able to clone it to a DVD and install it via an external drive?


3. HDD and SSD:
I've realised that the SSD versions of the aspire one did not perform as expected, but it seems that new, and better solid state drives are coming. Also, I might get an Intel SSD of the next generation for practically free, so:
-Will I have a problem installing an Intel SSD into the AA1? (It's a 2"5 Sata easily accessible through the back, right?)
-Will it live up to the hype?
-If I will replace the HDD with a SSD, will I be able to restore the HDD disk image into the SSD?


4. RAM:
I want to upgrade it:
-If I understand correctly, unlike earlier versions of the AA1, the D250 have an easily reachable slot at the bottom, right?
-Is this memory compatible: 'OCZ DDR2 SODIMM 2GB 667MHZ OCZ2MV6672G' , or is there anything else to worry about beside the form factor and being 667MHZ?


5. Other question:
-the AOD250-1151 is supposed to be black, but I've seen images of it with both a black panel around the keyboard, and a grey-silvery one. which is it?
-I'm thinking of using a full drive encryption. Will there be no problem with doing that while multi-booting? Is TrueCrypt the way to go?
-I got my brother an extra power supply in which the brick itself is plugged to the wall, making it relatively compact. It also had changeable wall plugs. The shop that had it (dealextreme) no longer does. Are there any other good ones available?
-Does it have a PCMCIA Expansion slot? some places say yes, some say no.
-If so, what is it good for beside g3 and graphic acceleration? can it be used for extra storage?
-Why, o why did they remove the SD expansion slot?
-Are there any other notable differences I should know about between the older versions and the AOD250?


My vision is to have an enscrypted system with the OS(s) fully backed up by Clonezilla, and the files fully backed up by Syncplicity,
enabling me to mess up with it and easily restore everything.

Thanks for reading,
Foo.

 

Re: Getting the AOD250 - ideas and questions.

1 The D250 is capable of running most platforms, the only problem is drivers. Open Solaris is another option, and all drivers but the LAN (this can be compiled) are good, the biggest hit with all Linux & Unix distros is battery life, so far XP is the best

2 Some have tried this and had problems, although personally I dont see it being a huge problem, however unless space is critical why bother. The Acer gives you the option to create back-up DVD`s from the recovery routine anyway. Just note the recovery DVDs will not re-establish the recovery partition, only OS & apps. If you have the disks, the main advantage of the recovery partition is that if you have an issue on the road you can get the Netbook into a working state in 15min, and as long as you have partitioned the drive (Easeus) your data is safe. I keep a folder with my app installation files on the back of the drive, so if in a worse case I can restore all, or re-establish my own image from Acronis (just a note LG Netbooks (X120) come with an imaging tool out the box and you can create your own, without any third party SW, or apply the factories, pity more did not include this functionality.

3. No the SSD should be a straight fit, the D250 has an access hatch for the HD, so no problems there. Performance wise you should see an improvement, although I dont see the HD as a huge bottle neck, so like most things with Netbooks it will be a moderate increase at best. You can easily restore the Acer image from the recovery DVD`s (you will need to burn these from the recovery routine)

4. RAM, 2Gb no problem, once again the D250 has an access panel, not sure about your compatibility

5. Mine is black, gloss black bezel and dark gunmetal interior, ACER seem to vary models of Netbooks depending on geographical markets. Why encrypt the entire drive? This will only slow down the system, unless you have extremely sensitive or critical data, even then specific encryption of select folders is the solution. No PCMCIA. The SD expansion slot was there just to give additional storage capacity to to the low capacity SSD models. Now with 160Gb HD, and the ability to upgrade up-to 500Gb, this is redundant and only adds to the cost

6. The Acer image does seem a little snappier especially once you uninstall all the garbage, although I doubt it is significantly different to any other version of XP Home. I have tried numerous OS and keep coming back to XP, the battery life is the primary reason, if I could get the same from Open Solaris, I would run with this one, and as above it works on the D250 perfectly, the bottom line is XP is a much more mature OS and the power management is much better, I could probably tweak it, however it will still not give the run time I can get from the D250 on XP.

 

Re: Getting the AOD250 - ideas and questions.

Thanks Queen, those are some interesting answers!

1. Kuki didn't seem to have any drivers problem. I'd be happy to hear from any experienced AA1ers who have used it. The battery life issue is interesting.

2. Problems with removing it, problems with working without it, or problems restoring it? The same question arise if I'm thinking of changing the drive to a new clean one. Space is not critical, but if I wanna use a third party clone program like Clonezilla, (which I trust better than the built in one), I want the drive to be as light as possible. Partitioning the drive so that I'd be able to install the OS without losing my files... that's something that as a desktop user I just didn't think of... not familiar to using just one drive.

3. I'm less worried about the overall performance. I'm more interested in a fast boot, low power consumption, less noise, and the ability to shake it around while it is working.

5. Any idea what color I'll be getting in New York? That's where I'm getting mine, (I'll not be there, I'm sending a relative), and if it's not black-black, I might get a white one or a red one instead. Encrypt the drive cause, unlike a desktop, there is a substantial chance for it to get lost or stolen, and I'm too paranoid to let someone freely browse through my por- eh, files. I know most thieves do not care and do not know how to look for stuff, but my paranoia doesn't... How much does it affect performance? maybe I'll settle on a user password and a some kind of emergency-remote-control program.

6. I guess I'll let the the hidden windows partition be. My desktop will be able to carry the disk images even with the extra weight.

Thanks again.

 

Re: Getting the AOD250 - ideas and questions.

From what I have read, problems with the hidden partition occur when the Master Boot Record is updated say if you install Window7, it can be edited and fixed and the solutions are on the forum. It would really depend on the situation, As I say I dont see it being a major problem, if the partition is cloned byte for byte it will be fine, just the MBR may need sorting out, and you can look that up.

Partitioning the drive will save you a lot of pain, in the event of a system failure and is generally a must with portables. If security is really an issue you can encrypt files/folders on this partition not the system drive. How much slowdown you will see is going to depend on many variables, level of encryption, algorithms used, volume of files etc, I think it would be safe to say that the slowdown will be fairly noticeable, especially if applied at a system level, if it`s just select folders then it wont be as noticeable.

My D250 is destined for my wife and she is happy with XP, although I can see Windows7 coming, so I dont plan on anything, much more than web, mail, music, video, chat and some light office, my only complication is that it once I am happy with the softload, I will then reload the system from scratch in simplified Chinese.

I have an LG X120 and they duel boot out of the box with XP as primary OS and a Quick Start Splashtop (fast 5 sec boot, access to web, Skype mail, chat etc) this is Linux based and even here the battery life is over 1-1/2 less. One of the guys a work has an eePC 1000H and he has tried just about every OS on this all mutli booting (500Gb drive) and his observation was the same, that battery life was always significantly less than XP regardless of which distro.

OS X would probably be the only one that has an extended battery run time, just that cutting it up to get it work reliably is a pain and as far as I am aware, the D50 is not overly compatible, with many drivers still missing. If Open Solaris could be persuaded to be less power hungry this is the one i would use. I ran 2009.06 and even with all desktop enhancements on it ran sweet, it is a server based OS so power consumption was never a priority. Pity one of the major attractions of Netbooks for me is the long run time.

If you are coming from a multi core desktop, then you might be in for a surprise, best thing is to look for apps that dont eat up CPU cycles, my Netbook is pretty much on par with my Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro, by choosing lightweight apps. I tend to think the opposite as I am not concerned with boot times (standby & hibernate fix that) more on overall performance & power consumption, getting rid of Mcaffe is a must, I run Eset NOD32 & Ghostwall.

Q-6

 

Re: Getting the AOD250 - ideas and questions

Hi again,
and thanks again Queen.

Here are some conclusions, and some additional questions;

1. Dual boot and Linux: Right now I'll forget about dual boot, and run Kuki from a USB stick if I'll really need it.
2. The Windows hidden partition: I'll keep the hidden partition.
3. HDD and SSD: Once the new-gen Intel SSDs will be out, I'll probably get it and try it out, but I'm not waiting for it.
4. RAM: Already ordered a 2GB stick from the same place the AO will be coming from.

5. Other question:

Security:
-Full drive inscription is strong, but I understand it really does cripple performance.
-Bios password doesn't protect the data itself, and I don't feel quite comfortable with it, as I don't fully understand it.
-Windows pass is too weak and doesn't protect data.
-Remote-kill program is nice, but require it to be connected and require me to respond fast.

I'm thinking the right answer for me would be a combination of a remote kill program and some kind of a os-based password, but one question that comes to mind, will a program like that work if the user will not even be able to log in the os? What do you do to protect your data in case of theft?

Card reader:
Will an SD card be fully concealed in the card reader of the D250?
I know it's not so in the ZG5, but I've seen that the D250 has a plastic filler in the reader, suggesting you take it out by pushing it in, as with some SD card readers.

Also, I know that 9.8" models do not support booting from SD, but it seems that the 11.6" model does (viewtopic.php?f=87&t=16735&p=99596). How about the 10.6" model? I'd love being able to run an linux out of an SD, especially if the answer to my first question is yes.


Thanks.