How smooth is AA1 for online streaming videos?

I frequently use my Thinkpad laptop (runs smoothly on wireless with strong broadband) for watching old TV shows from the internet, CNN news videos, youtube etc. Example TV below:
http://www.fancast.com/tv/MacGyver/9057 ... est/videos

If I were to use the Aspire One Linux out of the box (without changing/hacking/tweaking anything) to watch these kinds of streaming videos:

1. Would the AA1 cause any stuttering or missed frames if running on its wireless. My concern is whether the wireless card, CPU, 512MB ram are strong enough to ensure smooth streaming

2. Would the Linux OS prompt me to install Plug-Ins in the same way that I encounter on certain websites that prompt me to install various "Flash" plug-ins in order to watch their videos? If so, would it be like Windows XP-Firefox3, where the related plugin source website (example Adobe Flash) would automatically appear on my screen; or would I have to hunt for the Linux equivalent?

I am very attracted to the AA1 for its portability but have hesitated to buy because I wouldn't know what to do if I encounter such need to install various software/plugins to watch the videos in my sufing, which I do a lot with my lappy.

I would appreciate your guidance on this. Thanks.

 

Just took a look at a vid...in the 'optimized' mode it's just slightly choppy on my AA1 using the wireless connection. Full-scree is a little choppier but still watchable. Looks like it's dropping every third or fourth frame.

Perry

 

the Windows version plays flash videos perfectly fine. the Linux version can't without skipping, but it's faster in almost every other respect.

The flash plugin is optimized for Windows and is not open source, so Linux kind of has to run flash videos through a Windows emulator. that's a very simple description, but you get the idea.

The Linpus version comes with all the common plugins and media codecs pre-installed. But of course it will prompt you to install missing plugins, should you come across them, just as a windows PC does.

I personally recommend the Windows version, it's only $20 more and comes with a gigantic hard drive and doubled ram...and the universally accepted Windows OS. I'm generally fine with linux, I run Linux Mint on my spare computer that is used almost exclusively for internet browsing. But Acer's Linpus Linux is an incredible pain to use, seriously.

 

The first thing i've done out of the box (Linpus 8GB AA0 110) was to access youtube and to a rihanna video.
5*, no problem at all

 

The basic Linups AA1 was great for youtube when I tried it, but HD video from Vimeo had the occasional stutter, though it was mostly watchable. RealPlayer streaming of BBC programs was perfect too, so I am fairly impressed with how it has worked so far.

 

Yesterday I tried my Linux AA1 on a couple of U-tube videos and on some of Shawn Powers' tech videos at linuxjournal.com and both sites looked very good. Next I went to CBS and checked out some video clips from The Big Bang Theory. They were good, too. Finally I went to the CBS HD video page. In standard view the HD video was a bit jerky but watchable. When I went to full screen they looked pretty bad with lots of dropped frames. How much of this was processor and how much was bandwidth I don't know. I was at the library where http://network.msu.edu/public/speedtest.html reports about 2 MB/sec down, but typical downloads seem to run more like 250 kB/sec or less.

 

I have an aspire one 1gb of ram, 120gb hdd. I bought it on sept 1st, and watched some youtube videos on it. they are choppy in the first 2 seconds of every video with my wireless connection. but after that they're fine.

 

I have the XP 120GB version and use HULU.com a lot to watch TV shows. Works fine to me with the wireless. Though, I do have Verizon Fios.