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Ask Slashdot: What's The Best Cheap Linux-Friendly Netbook?
Seems like a good time to revisit this question -- assuming anyone's still using a netbook. Long-time Slashdot reader Qbertino writes:
I'm looking for a cheap lightweight netbook that is Linux-friendly, i.e. lets me install Linux without any shoddy modern BIOS getting in my way... The Lenovo 100S-11 looks really neat, but I just read about installation problems... Are there any alternatives?
And if there aren't, what experience do you guys have running Linux on a Chromebook using Crouton -- the Linux-parallel-to-Chrome-OS hack? Is it a feasible alternative to dumping ChromeOS and installing a 100% lightweight Linux?
His budget is around $200, and he ends his submission with "Many thanks from a fellow Slashdotter." So leave your suggestions in the comments. What's the best cheap Linux-friendly netbook?
And if there aren't, what experience do you guys have running Linux on a Chromebook using Crouton -- the Linux-parallel-to-Chrome-OS hack? Is it a feasible alternative to dumping ChromeOS and installing a 100% lightweight Linux?
His budget is around $200, and he ends his submission with "Many thanks from a fellow Slashdotter." So leave your suggestions in the comments. What's the best cheap Linux-friendly netbook?
Going for $200 used on Fleabay.
I do this on my desktop but to achieve usable VM performance on a notebook he'll likely have to spend a bit more than $200 - faster CPU and more memory.
I picked up an Acer ES1 for about $12O and it has upgradable RAM so I stuck an 8GB stick in. Best "laptop" I've ever had.
You'll be very sorry if you get a Baytrail device.
Dell Inspiron 11.6" Laptop Intel Celeron 2GB Ram 32GB eMMC Flash Memory Bali Blue I3162-0000BLU
$156 at Amazon
Now that the wifi drivers work out of the box with the most recent Linux distributions, the HP Stream 11 works well and has a better keyboard than the Lenovo. Secureboot can be turned off in the BIOS. You might have to tinker with the synaptics.conf file to get the clickpad functions to all work the way you want them.
Both battery life and performance are decent.
(I'm using the older Celeron N2840 version - there's a newer N3050 version that I haven't tested running Linux. Strangely, for raw compute power the older model is slightly faster.)
Both models can be had for around $100 on eBay.
I tried native Ubuntu on a chromebook before the Stream, and driver support was a pain.
For less than the budget mentioned, I recently bought a seven year old business class / "durable build" name brand laptop. I installed the current mint distro, allowing it to completely replace the obsolete version of MS windows that was on it. This worked out so well that I bought a second, and bought Win 10 for it. I wound up with 2 shiny aluminum clad business laptops with my two favorite operating systems. They even came with extra batteries. I know this is not what you asked for, but, I felt, worthy of consideration, and a good hobby computing experience. One last perk: although they had adequate memory, I found that the memory sticks are cheap for these older machines, so stuffed 'em! All good fun and my best regards to the Slashdot community.
https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Cl...
I bought 3 of these. 1.6 GHz Braswell Celeron N3050 processor, actually better than the new version that recently replaced it.
2GB DDR3 RAM, Ok that's just barely enough but it does work ok
32GB flash memory
This machine is totally silent, fanless and no hard drive. Well built with a good Intel 802.11ac wireless chip.
This was Microsoft's attempt to compete in the education market against Chromebooks. It failed because even 32 bit Windows 10 is too bulky to run well on this machine. I replaced Windows with 64 bit Ubuntu Linux using the XFCE desktop. I don't know if Unity will run on this machine but I don't like Unity anyway.
It's best to install Linux with the UEFI boot left in place. Ubuntu works ok with UEFI... you just have to follow the online instructions.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
My last Notebook was a Windows 8 Notebook that I immediately formatted without booting into Windows one time with my Particular Linux Distribution. I could boot it using CSM or non-Secure Boot UEFI. I never booted Windows once,
What I don't know is, (I've considerd ChromeBooks for a while) can a ChromeBook boot from a Linux install DVD and completely eradicate the Chrome OS Installation and boot only the Linux install of my choice, or will the BIOS get in the way, because ChromeOS is completely useless. But I wasn't going to buy one of these, format the hard drive only to find out formatting the hard drive Soft Bricked it because it won't Boot whatever I want.
wrong answer.
obviously wants linux as the os, likely to avoid windows.
that's as bad as recommending a windows computer to someone looking for a mac.
instead of pushing your own agenda, why not answer the question correctly. almost as bad as answering 4, to the question "what is your favorite color"!
Acer AspireOne Netbook - I wiped Microsoft Windows 10 and installed Xubuntu Linux.
These are ten year old laptops going from $60-$200 on eBay depending on condition and options.
They will run Mint or Ubuntu with nothing customized, and support a built in RJ45 network port, lots of USB ports, up to 8GB RAM, SSD, etc.
I give them out at Christmas to friends struggling with Windows.
Note: They come with two graphic adapter options... one of which is Nvidia. If you get the one with Nvidia you *must* install the proprietary "blob" driver from Nvidia, as the open source Nouveau driver does not (didn't?) support it.
Pros: for non graphics intensive stuff it's a heck of a workhorse.
Cons: for graphics stuff it really can't keep up with a 4K movie stream.
E
Reasonable 6-8 hour battery life, definitely less than $200 on eBay ($100-130) and you can crack it open to upgrade the storage to a larger drive, like 256GB. Hardware is fully supported with GalliumOS. Runs all your normal Linux software just fine, including Netflix streaming. Supports a FHD external display via HDMI port.
I bought one at the school surplus sale for $50. Another $50 for memory an $100 for an SSD put the total at $200 for a machine that runs just about any Linux distribution as well as Windows 10.
A little heavier than a netbook, but the size is right. My only real complaint is that DDR2 is getting pricey.
In the past I've never had an issue installing multiple Linux distros on the Acer Aspire series of netbooks. Currently I'm using an Acer Cloudbook 14 with Enchantment OS however there were some distros like Linux Lite and Zorin that failed to install on it. YMMV.
I croutoned a Lenovo 100s Chromebook ($150 on sale) over two months ago and since then have been using it five days a week for about four hours a day on my long train commute. Most of that time has been in Blender 3D (which required a few tweaks to its system preferences due to graphics crashes).
Some observations:
1. You have to be in "Developer Mode" and push Ctrl-D when rebooting. Once I accidentally hit the spacebar (which will reset to a fresh install of ChromeOS, deleting your crouton installation) but you can escape out of that on the next page (whew). Setting up crouton is so easy that as long as you backup your data it would be easy enough to recover.
2. You must update through crouton periodically or it can stop working (detailed in crouton's readme). I run the update occasionally, but especially after ChromeOS updates. I've never had my Linux installation not run.
3. Limited memory and HD space are kind of a concern, but if you're looking at this low-ball figure you're probably willing to work around it. The 100s has USB and SD card slots so expansion is easy.
4. The 100s screen is about what you'd expect from a cheap device, but if you can look at one in a store you'll know what you're getting.
5. I use a Logitech cordless mouse with USB dongle. I've never been a touchpad fan, though.
I looked at putting GalliumOS on it but crouton is really so much easier and fits my purposes. And I want to keep ChromeOS on there for when the promised Android support arrives.
I concur.
Source: I have a job, a surface studio, regularly bathe, and get more strange than I can shake a dick at.
https://www.walmart.com/ip/Ref...
Linux installs and runs, they are often on special.
The main point is that you can upgrade the ram to 8G, upgrade to Intel WiFi which also gets you bluetooth and maybe put an SSD or DVD/Bluetooth drive in later. All 'inexpensive' and as money permits.
With that done it turned a reliable really low end laptop into something that challenges the expensive devices and is still rock solid.
almost as bad as answering 4, to the question "what is your favorite color"!
Obviously. Any decent intelligent person's favorite color is 5.
Get a refurb lenovo t-series, put extra ram and a better HD in it if you have the cash.
Chromebooks are pretty high quality and worth considering especially given the price. From experience:
ChromeOS is a nice idea but the web isn't there yet and Google's (slow) integration of Android, to a certain extent, is a surrender in recognition of that fact.
I wasn't impressed with Crouton. Well, know, wait, that's unfair: what Crouton does is impressive, but it's one of those things where you think "This is what you want", and you get it, and you realize that wasn't really what you wanted. Crouton offers a way to get a user session from Ubuntu (or whatever) to co-exist with your ChromeOS session, but it only really works if you want one of the major desktops on an older version of Ubuntu. And when you finally get it working, you end up asking yourself "Why? Why not have full Ubuntu, rather than just a user session?" and then you say "Ah, but this lets me switch between ChromeOS and half assed Ubuntu" and then you slap yourself and say "Why the f--- would you want ChromeOS if you're running Ubuntu anyway?"
So... the next step is chrx. chrx is a tool to actually install Ubuntu on your Chromebook - I mean, properly, not a subset. The process feels a little like installing Slackware on a Gateway 2000 PC from the late 1990s, which is odd because Chromebook hardware is more standardized, but, well. You'll need to patch your Chromebook's BIOS, for example. Oddly it's to support something called "Legacy boot", which raises an obvious question.
chrx does allow you to partition the laptop's SSD so you can keep ChromeOS for those occasions it might be useful. But otherwise you get to install either pure Ubuntu, or (the default) a modified version called GalliumOS which has its own "optimal" desktop. I'm running the latter, with Cinnamon, and it mostly works, except the multimedia keys don't do anything (so I can't adjust the volume easily), and the mousepad is always "tap to click" for some reason. Like I said, it's like installing Slackware on a 1990s PC.
If you have patience, a Chromebook is a good idea. Like I said, very high quality hardware for the price. But you need patience.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
If you get a job, you can afford a real computer - a Macintosh.
A new 2015, end of line discounted Macbook Air will make a very nice Linux machine.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
if you can install it
What is wrong with dark blue?
Chromebook build that had Windows
What's Windows got to do with it? Just get a regular Chromebook, unlock it and install Linux. Since it was running Linux before unlocking you know the hardware has drivers.
I've been running an Acer C720 chromebook for years. I bought it off a friend for $75. Now I use it for work, and for fun at home.
It's got SeaBIOS hack, and Ubuntu 14 with ZSWAP (compress RAM as a "Swap" to increase your effective RAM). It "was" running Huge Green Bug ( https://github.com/hugegreenbu... ) but either the guy stopped updating it, or, he upgraded the only distro he supports and all my repos stopped working. So I told it I was actually running Ubuntu and ran a full distro upgrade. It broke some of the special fixes he added, like the mousepad scroll rate is super fast, and a couple other things. But I mostly got it running fine again.
Now back to usability. Ubuntu with Unity freaking rules. I'm NO canonical fanboy but Unity has absolutely beautiful hotkeys for a Netbook once you get used to them. With different combinations of SUPER + ALT/CONTROL I can easily run four virtual desktops, move windows between them, INVERT a Window (or all of Linux) for easier-than-Windows night mode browsing. (I hardcoded Ctrl-Alt-Shift-N to "negate" a window, and Cltr-Alt-Shift-I to "negate" the entire system.) I also use Guake which is a drop-down console like Guake has. The key thing about Guake is, it _doesn't_ change with virtual desktop, so I've got a drop-down terminal (with tabs) that stays the same at the push of a button and it's always there regardless of what "task = virtual desktop" that I'm working at. So I'll have personal stuff on one virtual desktop, then one or more independent tasks in the rest. So I can have gmail on one, then work notes on the next, and Audacity on the next for recording a conference call, and work internet on the last desktop. AND, Guake then has three or four tabs that have random terminal stuff as well as htop (task manager), Wavemon (Wifi manager), and a custom bash script with various statistics like RAM availability.
Now, flaws? Other than some initial setup issues, my biggest and only real flaw is: LACK OF RAM. Mine only has 2 GB of RAM. For the LOVE OF GOD, get more than 2 GB of RAM if you plan to use multi-tasking AND internet. A single Google Document webpage is a RAM whore and will eat up at least 200MB. And once you hit the end of RAM (and ZRAM), you are SCREWED and the system will start lagging and if you don't hurry and stop the "too many tabs", the system will completely halt to the point it's faster to reboot than to recover. On the brightside, the SSD on that laptop means it reboots in less than eight seconds!
So, get a 4 GB RAM laptop, and any Netbook with the CPU of an Acer C720 or later should be more than enough. (C720 has an i3 model but I think it's only 2 GB. So you have to decide between 4 GB or a better CPU.) There _should_ be better netbooks out there these days though. But mine is just fine. It also has a battery life of eight to ten hours!
Oh, I forgot to stress. An SSD is a life-saver. They're rapidly coming down in price so if you get a laptop without one, just buy one already. 32 GB in my Chromebook is too small for media at times, but modern SSD's are comparatively huge, and cost next to nothing. I got a 250 GB for my computer for $45 shipped and it's not the "fastest" SSD (I've got faster ones in my computer as well), but it was cheap and it's still (actual) 15x times faster than my next physical hard drive. SSD's are night-and-day difference in computer response these days and worth every penny.
dark blue calms down Parkinsons Disease symptom of swaying to and fro. Makes you wonder howbad Billy Boy intended you to feel about Windows interaction until your relief by a blue screen of death.
Extremely robust and user friendly. Since its not a chromebook, you don't have to fiddle with it to get whatever distro you want on it (at least, not more than usual). Toss fedora on it and you're good to go. Best part is, just about everything is upgradable, so if/when you have more money you can start improving it piece by piece. I got mine for $100 off of ebay and it already had 8gb of Ram on it. Just today I put a nice SSD into it and it's been fantastic. Next purchase will probably be a new battery ($30 for a higher capacity but I don't really need it) and a new screen ($60 for screen + $10 cable - once again, I don't need it but still a nice upgrade). Probably my favorite piece of gear right now, especially because I'm building it up piece by piece.
Google "WM8880 netbook" or "WM8650 netbook", you'll find a really cheap Arm based netbook for that price, running varied OSes including Android, Windows CE and Linux varients.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Yeps I have Asus t200(I got is a gift last year) . 2gb of ram.... Windows 10. Can run linux in virtual box pretty good. Use a light weight environment. I use it for programming... Obviously not anything intense(don't bother running Firefox in the vbox in it) . Prototyping code works well. Yeps.. Prototyping. Not a production environment. Jesus the thing can run eclipse with CDT and mingw. Yep it takes a longer than a few seconds to compile code... So you better be right before you compile. Haha que in punch card stories. Nope no complaints - no noise either.
I was afraid there you were going to name a real computer and spoil the mystery. Thanks for just typing Macintosh instead.
I picked up one of these with an A4-6210 APU and it is a phenomenal machine. Cost was $180 but I added a 8G RAM upgrade and a 256G SSD. Highly recommended, and the keyboard is amazing.
Clickety Click
Only you can determine if it has enough storage and RAM for your needs, but it's been fine for me. I'm now running a Lenovo T420S because the slightly bigger screen is better for my aging eyes. But I still love the Chromebook. I didn't bother with Crouton - I went straight to full-on Linux, first Bodhi, then Xubuntu. There was a bit of a fiddle getting the touchpad working, but not a big deal if you're already comfortable with Linux. And it's available on Amazon for $185.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
Try this link. There's plenty to choose from real cheap. Cut & paste to keep the spaces it puts in. www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&IsNodeId=1&N=100006740 4016 4017 4027
Pros: Quad ARM 1.8GHz Cortex-A17, 4GB RAM. Supported by Libreboot and Linux >= 4.8. Great battery life. 0.9kg.
Cons: 16GB non-replaceable SSD. Not very user-friendy install process. No hardware accelerated graphics (even in Crouton)...yet.
https://wiki.debian.org/InstallingDebianOn/Asus/C201
http://ixsoft.de/ is a Linux shop in Germany that offers netbooks with all kinds of Linux distros preinstalled, so I assume the netbooks they use are compatible. One model they offer is the Acer Travelmate B117M, which Acer targeted at the educational sector. It is robust, has a non-glare display and a replacable battery.
Entirely arse backwards.
Run Linux on the metal, and if you have to use Windows, stick it in a VM, ideally without any network access, unless it's absolutely essential.
That way it's both certified to run on gnulinux and tested with QA.
I would go with Dell specific Kaby Lake Linux model as it gives Dell a financial incentive to support Gnu/Linux
http://saveie6.com/
Buy anything that has linux preinstalled. Even if it cost MORE than the windows counterpart. Let's show we're actually using Linux and NOT windows, please!
Macbook Pro?
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I've been running crouton on a toshiba chromebook for a couple years now and I use it with surprising frequency.
I spend most of my time on the linux side, running terminals, vpns, and some custom chat and web apps. It's not my main system but I frequently use it as a supplement.
The downside of the config is the annoying/slow "developer mode" bios warning on reboot that you get from unlocking the chromebook bios, and the 3-4 commands you have to run after each reboot to get crouton up and running and happy. Luckily you don't need to reboot often. My average is about once every two months because I've let the battery run down too far. I'm very happy with it especially for the price.
Get an inexpensive Windows 10 machine to guarantee that you can run all the software you need, and run whatever distro of Linux you want in a VM.
And have the spyware that comes with MS Windows sniff the keyboard and send all your passwords to only Satya Nadella knows where ?
Anyway: Linux is just much more usable: I have spent some 6 hours installing, then a couple of weeks later: uninstalling and reinstalling printer drivers for an HP printer on a friend's MS Win 10 box. My Linux Mint laptop (Mate desktop) printed a test page on it in about 60 seconds and just works, drivers already there. MS Windows is just user hostile and hard to use.
I don't know if they still make netbooks but I bought an NB520 (using it with Linux Mint Mate right now) several years ago and I think it's a superb little computer.
With a 10" screen it fits inside a hotel room safe.
I'm told that Toshiba doesn't put in any of the hardware white/black list crap so when I received a Virgin Superhub I was able to swap the WiFi card for a dual band Intel one that supports the 5GHz WiFi band.
It's easy to get at the innards - just take out two screws from the base and the cover comes off to give easy access to hard drive, memory and WiFi card.
The SD card slot "Just Works".
The only thing I can't seem to get to work is bluetooth, but it's easy to plug into the USB.
Overall, I'm really happy with this computer and strongly suggest that the brand should be considered.
I bought used HP Elite 2540p a year ago. It's a sturdy business class laptop, mine goes with 160 GB SSD, 4 GB RAM and i7-640 CPU. Hard to beat these specs in this price range. No problems with installing Linux (I use Arch) either.
First with Crouton you can work with many Unix distributions, but if you wipe / install Linux clearly you can work with any one you want.
Second, if you really want Linux and wish to use it 50, 70 or 80 or 99% of the time, you should prob. install Linux.
I've used Ubuntu since 2009 as primary desktop until 2015 (July) when I purchased a Chromebook Pixel -- I use that device as my primary desktop, and use Crouton running Ubuntu when there is something I can't do in Chrome OS like run Audacity, record in Skype, etc.
14.04 LTS Unity with touch works very well.
I'm currently using Ubuntu 16.04.1 LTS but not w/ Unity - it doesn't work as well but is reliable.
Now that I have access to Android Apps I now have fewer reasons to run Ubuntu.
ChromeOS + Linux (via Crouton) + Android Apps = is really an amazingly powerful system. ChromeOS is fairly secure, Android Apps offer a lot of flexibility and Ubuntu/Linus can do mostly everything else.
http://www.hawknest.com/
I've owned four different version of Asus EEE (701, 901, 1015E and 1015PEM) and all have run Linux without a single hiccup.
You'll find many EEE's are running Linux natively, as they were sold with it pre-installed.
If you get one of the Windows ones, you can install Linux on it (I had to do this for the PEM I got to replace my E)
I picked up my PEM for $60 on eBay and love it!
Seconded. The Asus X201E/F201E (X or F depending on where they were released) are GREAT. I have bought several of them on ebay, put in a cheap 120 GB SSD and installed Ubuntu. Perfect Netbook. It's cheap, it's solid, very lightweight, very good screen (although glossy), decent keyboard, even has a USB 3 (plus 2 USB 2). Battery is good for 4 hours of work or 1 movie (or 2 episodes). The power adapter is fairly small and light too. They even look decent. Fairly good build quality too. So far none of the 6 I bought have failed. Asus no longer produces them but they are available via ebay. Asus originally even offered a variant with Linux pre-installed (that's how I got my first one) There's 2 hardware variants: 2GB RAM vs 4 GB RAM. For most stuff it doesn't matter. I get the 4 GB variants just so I can play with kvm, lxc and docker. For just browsing, email, office work the 2 GB version is sufficient (I had that on my first F201E). The dual core centrino CPU is not powerful - but does the job. The integrated graphics is obviously not modern gaming capable (and a request for "Netbook" involves not requiring this) - but to my surprise it does run Age of Wonders III (obviously not on highest settings). Civ 5 is usable - but with noticable lag (even on lowest settings). Stuff like Baldurs Gate obviously has such low requirements compared to modern games that it runs without problems on this Netbook. But don't bother attempting anything fps depending. Duh. ;-)
I have given away several of them and everybody loves them.
There is still demand for them on ebay.
My guess is Asus discontinued these machines (and never offered successor machines) because they were a real alternatives for the much more expensive ultra book series for most everyday tasks.
These netbooks are perfect for getting stuff done on planes, trains or in a Cafe. That's what I originally got the first one for. But I used them far beyond my original plans.
Linux has 0 problems with these Netbooks.
Full disclosure: Every nth wake-up from sleep (I never turn them off, just close the cover and put it into standby mode) wifi doesn't wake up properly - that's the only time I bother to cold boot - half a minute later it's up again.
If you need more than 4 hours of battery - just get 2 of these. :-)
A colleague recently bought the Acer Chromebook 14. It has all Aluminium body and feels as solid as a MacBook Air for less than 1/3rd of the price. Other pro's are HD graphics 1920 x 1080 px, a matte screen, 4 GB memory. Con is only 32 GB storage, but if you run most stuff in the cloud that's enough.
Arrowdirect and several other websites offer them for around $200. They are physically more robust then the consumer counterparts and are easy to upgrade (SSD or RAM). It is easy to get one in a mint condition.
Aspire One, i gb ram, 8+ ram or hdrive. CUB Linux. Cheap on the net.
For ~$200, you can get a 2014 Toshiba Chromebook 2 with a really nice, full-HD, IPS display -- I mean better than the one on my 13" (non-retina) Macbook Pro. A good screen is hard to get at this price point, especially on a used Thinkpad. I used to swear by them, but Thinkpads have never been known for their display quality and people beat them to hell. That's especially true for the X-series, where you get pressure spots (those white halos on the display) if you breathe on them wrong.
I run Ubuntu Trusty on a 2014 TCB2 (the full HD version). The 2014s are fanless Baytrail machines that pull about nine hours of battery life. Unity runs as fast on them as a lighter environment like XFCE, and the machine itself is good for web browsing and word processing. I run Scrivener and Office 2010 in Wine, and they both work fine. For another $50, you can get the 2015 version of the Full HD Chromebook 2 with a Celeron or an i3, and get a backlit keyboard in the bargain.
The function keys and sound don't work out of the box, but there's an installation guide at:
http://www.fascinatingcaptain.com/howto/install-ubuntu-on-the-toshiba-chromebook-2-in-5-steps/
Hey, guys. Thanks for all the wonderful input, I'm learning quite a bit.
I get the 'refurbished ThinkPad' path, I've done that myself. My large refurbished 15" W530 running Xubuntu 16.4 LTS is basically my luggable workstation. However, knowing myself I'd get a 12" X230 for 350 Euros, then an extra battery pack for 200 Euros to extend the battery life from 4 hours to 16, then I'd get extra RAM and an SSD and land somewhere around 800 - 1000 Euros. I'd have a small and good machine that would be overkill for what I want to do and still be compareatively heavy with the battery pack included. This all, including the final price, is sort of the scenario I'm trying to avoid. :-)
I wasn't aware of the crouton alternateive chrx + GalliumOS, which looks really neat and intrigueing.
I'm not sure which way I'm going to go but I'm following your input carefully.
Again, thanks a bunch!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
I know it's not a laptop, but I've had really good luck with my Slate 7. i5, 4gb ram and a 128gb hdd for around $175 on ebay. Grab a wireless mouse and keyboard and it's just as good as a laptop.
Find a MacBook Air on ebay used for cheap.
They have been around for a long time, have Intel processors, can boot Linux.
Repairs are easy, and replacement parts are easy to find.
I got one refurbished for $280 which I understand is over budget, but you may be able to find one cheaper.
The Intel N3170 CPU isn't a slouch entirely, and runs Fedora 24 w/Cinnamon desktop very well. I've been using this machine for about 3 months now and am very satisfied with this "education" laptop. The 11.6 screen isn't the best, and there may be upgrades available, but it's on par with any netbook.
This is a very tough machine, rubberized edging for shock absorption, fanless design for high dust resistance, water resistant keyboard. All this came about from the MIL-STD-810D testing.
I slapped a not-too-old SSD in mine, and the performance got even better. Also I get an easy 5 or 6 hours of battery life (after powertop and a few othe 'nix power tweaks)
That's my two cents on the matter.
Thinkpad 11e
Acer C270, Q4OS Linux preinstalled $199
http://www.q4os.org/shop/index...
Sometimes called the Princeton, NP300 or just 300.
11.6in screen, 3rd gen Core I3, 8gigs ram, 2.5 pounds, standard 2.5in drive (easy to add SSD) same form factor as old netbooks. Battery life could be better, but still a fantastic little machine. Not always easy to find, but the last one I saw on Ebay went for well under $100, you could add an ssd and 8gigs and still be under $200.
Takes to Linux, Windows or even Mac well.
I bought a Lenovo S21e about a year ago. A few hours with the Windows sales and merchandising festival of tricks wore me out. For the conversion to Ubuntu Linux I wound up getting a USB 3.0 port extender with an ethernet socket and three USB 3.0 ports, plus a 128 Gig micro SD card. I did a more or less conventional install of the latest Ubuntu Linux, I believe from a 2 Gig USB flash drive with the computer attached to the Internet by way of the external ethernet connection provided by the port extender device. The S21e does not have an ethernet socket. You have to provide it by means of a plug in port extender.
The S21E locks up hard like it has a momentary power glitch when a usb 3.0 plug is pushed into the left hand usb 3.0 socket. I have to depress the power switch maybe 20 seconds until the right side power light switched to a steady on state. Then, a conventional push and hold the power switch for 5 seconds seems to work. I don't have the patience to figure out the goofy way the laptop sometimes needs several minutes to get it running.
The Lenovo touch pad did not work and I eventually found a helpful website at https://alpha-labs.net/2015/08.... The short story is Linux kernels about a year ahead of the then current Ubuntu kernel have a touchpad driver embedded in the kernel. A knowledgeable kernel hacker edited the embedded touchpad driver to make the Lenovo s21e work. On the same website I list the easy and short wham bang steps to download and install the fixes for the touch pad.
Due to the passage of time, the current kernel may now have the needed touch pad driver mods now in the distribution kernel.
I bought my S21 e aiming to use it as a low power wireless SSH connection point running Python programs and talking to Raspberry Pi's with a 50 to 100 foot wireless link. What is missing so far is a low power auto lighter socket power supply good for 48 hours run time.
Uh, no. I'm pragmatic. I'll buy a less expensive computer bundled with Windows, wipe Windows and install my OS of choice. I'm not going to waste money for something I can do myself. That would be naively idealistic and foolish.
It's just a computer, not a revolution.
You might want to take a look at this. I don't recommend the C720 as it has defects that can lead to it randomly crashing. I haven't used crouton (as I've installed full firmware on mine. see link), but as far as I know, the main disadvantage is it runs alongside ChromeOS so it uses more resources.
Is quite good running Linux Mint.
About $120 on Ebay
This thing runs Linux great. My main distro is Elementary OS, and all is good out of the box. It's cheap and rugged. You will love it
Is what I have, a year ago it was $230, they probably have updated models now. It came with 2Gig RAM and 250 Gig mechanical drive, I upgraded it to 8 and an SSD, so there would be that expense if you do not already have the parts. Fanless, upgradable HD, light enough to actually carry around.
Unity if you have the GPU horsepower and need to convert a Mac user.
All three are much better than gnome, and IMHO better than the KDE DE (*NOT* the KDE app suite, which is still the best, esp for bluray burning!)
If you can still find them... they're built like a tank. My eee 901 still runs wonderfully using a lightweight distro like CrunchBang++, I had to exchange the battery once (for a larger one which results in about 7 hours of everyday use), but apart from that it's been a very reliable machine.
Ever wondered whats wrong with the world? http://www.ishmael.org/
I'm running Debian on a Lenovo T520. I've had no problems and I highly recommend the i3 window manager for a very lightweight system. I guess I should say there are some features I don't use, like the fingerprint reader. The T520 wouldn't be under $200, but I wanted to recommend the i3 window manager as another alternative to the more resource intensive desktop environments out there... which will open up your hardware options.
Just get a regular Chromebook, unlock it and install Linux.
That depends on whether the unlocking process also disables the firmware's "security feature" of begging the user to reenable "OS verification", which wipes the drive and reinstalls the stock OS. If someone unwittingly activates a wipe, you lose all uncommitted work and the use of the laptop until you return home to the recovery media.
Just get a regular Chromebook, unlock it and install Linux.
That depends on whether the unlocking process also disables the firmware's "security feature" of begging the user to reenable "OS verification", which wipes the drive and reinstalls the stock OS. If someone unwittingly activates a wipe, you lose all uncommitted work and the use of the laptop until you return home to the recovery media.
I only recall seeing that on powerup and its a quite easy thing to answer "no" to. Never perceived it as a problem. In normal day-to-day work the device was just sleeping and waking and I don't recall any such prompt. Also, nothing of value should exist on a single storage device. On the road I'll carry an encrypted USB stick to backup important files to periodically. There is not excuse for not having a backup.
I only recall seeing that on powerup and its a quite easy thing to answer "no" to.
If you happen to be the person in front of it, as opposed to someone else being in front of it when it has restarted to apply kernel, init, or libc updates.
Also, nothing of value should exist on a single storage device. On the road I'll carry an encrypted USB stick to backup important files to periodically. There is not excuse for not having a backup.
That's why I said "lose all uncommitted work and the use of the laptop", not "lose data" altogether. After you return home where you keep your backups, you can restore the OS and restore your data back to the last commit. But until you arrive, you're out of luck unless you carry enough restoration media to restore not only "important files" but also the entire operating system, as turning OS verification back on erases your developer mode image.
When on the road there is even less chance someone else will be booting, rather than waking, the machine. Also you can always download Linux again in the very unlikely event.
Plus the reenable OS verifications prompt times out, its largely lost in all the other pre-OS boot type messages. In other words is nearly universally ignored.
My favorites (I own 2 or more copies of each) : Chromebook with Celeron 2955U and m2 msata 2242 drive : Acer c720 4GB ; Toshiba Chromebook 2 2015 model. Both are also available in i3 models but I have never been able to tell the difference between the i3 and Pentium-class Celeron models (2955U and 3215U). Chromebooks have a very high standard for sound and horizontal viewing angles and so they are GREAT streaming devices - much better than most sub-$400 windows devices! These models can also do some lightweight 3D games (league of legends at 25-40 fps with 10-12 shaders or 20-23 shaders for the i3 models.)