Still using Linux, but

Story: One-third of Asus Eee PC users to run LinuxTotal Replies: 7
Author Content
billbar

Mar 15, 2008
11:33 AM EDT
I've been a Linux user for over 10 years, so i'm not suffering from a Windows bias. In truth, hate windows and rejected it from its earliest introduction.

Do have a problem with this EEE laptop, though. Heavy use, i.e., 24/7, many Firefox tabs, streaming radio, OpenOffice will lock the machine or OS after a few hours and require a restart. The radio may still be active, but the keyboard and mouse are dead, with the exception that I can still click the restart icon.

My configuration is the basic 512mb machine with an added monitor, keyboard, mouse, usb 2G stick and printer.

So, is the hardware simply not robust enough, or is this version of Linux unable to support such heavy activity. Have run the same environment on other desktops and laptops.

Maybe, in this case, Windows XP is the better choice. Certainly, I'm considering it.

Bill
tuxchick

Mar 15, 2008
11:58 AM EDT
Firefox is notorious for memory leaks, or excuse me, technically they're not memory leaks but something different that acts just the same, anyway the firefox team only recently even admitted there was a problem, after years of denial. I don't know if it's fixed yet. A simple test is don't use it and see what happens.

That is wimpy hardware for such demanding uses; you hit a triple- heavy I/O, memory, and CPU. Why would XP be better instead of adding more RAM? It's not going to perform under those loads any better.

Though you must admit this little machine does have one amazing superpower- overcoming your ten years of Windows hatred.
jdixon

Mar 15, 2008
1:12 PM EDT
From the description, it sounds like your running out of memory (which is locking the machine), however, you may also have a temperature related hardware problem with your machine.
tuxchick

Mar 15, 2008
1:50 PM EDT
Wow, just goes to show how skewed my perspective can get- that's not really all that wimpy. I have an old Thinkpad running a mobile Pentium 1.4 and 256 MB RAM, and it runs both XP and Fedora 8, which is fairly fat and bloaty, acceptably. So the Ee isn't that wimpy. Never mind what I said. jdixon's right, both heat and memory shortage are the likely culprits.
billbar

Mar 15, 2008
3:14 PM EDT
No, no, no! Didn't overcome my hatred of all things Windows. You're probably right, Windows wouldn't perform any better.
tuxchick

Mar 15, 2008
3:28 PM EDT
billbar, I dunno if it would. I just have a small seizure when someone says "windows." Sorry :)
techiem2

Mar 15, 2008
3:42 PM EDT
They're fixing lots of memory issues in Firefox 3. I've been playing with the beta a bit and it doesn't eat all my RAM after a couple days anymore.

One of the articled lxer linked to a few weeks back or some such talked about it a little.
tracyanne

Mar 15, 2008
4:33 PM EDT
From the eWeek.com article.

Quoting:The Taiwan company's branded business last year launched a 7-inch child-friendly Linux-based personal computer priced as low as $200, and new models with Microsoft's Windows XP will be priced around $390 to $400.


Note the price difference. If you were shopping around, but knew nothing about operating systems, which one would you be inclined to buy?

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