[SOLVED] Windows or Linux on ASUS EeePC 1001PX ?

[ianken51]

I have just been given an ASUS EeePC 1001PX netbook and I'm wondering which path I should take regarding the Operating System.
I've upgraded to 2GB RAM (the maximum) and added a 240GB Crucial BX500 SSD.

I'm aware that this is a single core 64-bit chip, but other specs are very low:-

. Operating System. Windows 7 Starter.
. Display. 10.1" LED backlit WSVGA (1024x600) Non-Glare Screen.
. CPU. Intel® Atom™ N450 Processor.
. Memory. DDR2, 2 x SO-DIMM, 2GB.
. Storage. 2.5" SATA2/240GB SSD.
. Wireless Data Network. WLAN 802.11 b/g@2.4GHz. ...
. Camera. 0.3 M Pixel Camera.

My question is whether or not it's worth bothering to install Windows 10 64 or 32-bit or a fast Linux distro such as Manjaro, Lubuntu, Linux Mint, or even Ubuntu instead? My gut feeling is that the Linux option will provide me with a longer life-cycle and much better usability than Windows 10.

What are your suggestions?

 

[delaro]

Windows runs pretty poorly on those to a point of being aggravating. Any XFCE desktop will work and I've installed all of those plus Cinnamon and Puppy. Netbooks like that are slow regardless of what you put on them thanks to those Atom processors so you're looking at very basic operations. Expect the battery to be nearly depleted and look at the hinges for possible damage. The last time I got a few of those as donations I ended up just making them kiddie friendly with ubermix then donating them back to a Church to be handed out.

 

[Alabalcho]

As @delaro already mentioned - whatever you will put there will be slow. If leaving Win 7 Starter is an option, I'd do just that (check for recovery partition, and if available, do a fresh install).

I've put for a friend (with SSD fried out) a Lubuntu booting off SD-Card, and it was (two years ago) just enough for basic browsing and YouTube.

 

[ianken51]

Windows runs pretty poorly on those to a point of being aggravating. Any XFCE desktop will work and I've installed all of those plus Cinnamon and Puppy. Netbooks like that are slow regardless of what you put on them thanks to those Atom processors so you're looking at very basic operations. Expect the battery to be nearly depleted and look at the hinges for possible damage. The last time I got a few of those as donations I ended up just making them kiddie friendly with ubermix then donating them back to a Church to be handed out.

Windows runs pretty poorly on those to a point of being aggravating. Any XFCE desktop will work and I've installed all of those plus Cinnamon and Puppy. Netbooks like that are slow regardless of what you put on them thanks to those Atom processors so you're looking at very basic operations. Expect the battery to be nearly depleted and look at the hinges for possible damage. The last time I got a few of those as donations I ended up just making them kiddie friendly with ubermix then donating them back to a Church to be handed out.

Many thanks Delaro. I'll dowbload "ubermix" and give it a try. Just installed Manjaro and sound doesn't work, but it is much snappier than Windows 7 Starter, and prettier as well. I've a few USB Thumb-drives so I think I'll try a few slim Linux distributions and see which I like best. I understand there's even an x86 version of Android to try. The EeePC looks to have been well maintained and the battery seems to be OK for around 2.5 hours but only testing will see how well it's held up.

Thanks again for the advice. Cheers ianken51

 

[ianken51]

As @delaro already mentioned - whatever you will put there will be slow. If leaving Win 7 Starter is an option, I'd do just that (check for recovery partition, and if available, do a fresh install).

I've put for a friend (with SSD fried out) a Lubuntu booting off SD-Card, and it was (two years ago) just enough for basic browsing and YouTube.

Hi "Alabacho". Much as I thought about Windows 10. I've kept the original 160GB HDD aside as it hold the recovery partition and is partitioned 80GB for C: and D: drives. Battery reports good and 100% capacity for an estimated 2.5 hours - more testing required.

Sound isn't working with Manjaro at present, but I think I'll try a few live Slim Linux distributions and see which I find best. Manjaro is certainly faster that Win 7 Starter - even on SSD. Might even give x86 Android and Raspbian a try.

It actually seems that this little netbook might be a nice introduction into Linux.

Cheers ianken51

 

[delaro]

Linux will sometimes require tweaking okay well almost always will require tweaking.

Manjaro menu>Multimedia>Volume Control>Configuration and check the sound profile "Analog Stereo Duplex”. For whatever reason, it comes up as something random and not even an option on the device in question.

ASUS EeePC 1001PX was also sold with a Linux distro called Xandros which at the time was pretty nice on those Netbooks. Unfortunately, it's discontinued but that should explain why drivers on Debian based distros are nearly flawless.

 

[jamespoo]

i have owned some old eeepc and dell mini and no name old netbooks that all use atom processors brought them dirt cheap as nobody wants them or i got them for free and in my test all have 2gb of ram and a hdd other then the dell mini that had an 8gb ssd

and in my test only all of the system using a number of operating systems EG windows xp windows 7 ubuntu mint ect the best and fastest os for these systems is puppy linux computers boot really fast web browsing watching youtube is great facebook google ect load fine using puppy linux makes these pc run really well it makes it will worth picking one up

if you want to play old pc games from 90's up to like mid 2000's then a optmised and trimmed version of xp will be your best choice as you can install modded drivers for the intel gma IGPU and it will run a bit better

i tested only one game on these systems running xp
Need for Speed: most wanted 2005 without modded driver low setting i got 12fps - 20fps average
with modded drivers i got 25fps - 32fps

 

[delaro]

Puppy is indeed fast but it's a unique distro with a rather limited App store and poor driver support. 😕 It's fun to play around with but what you learn in Puppy doesn't translate to other distros well so not a good OS for Linux beginners.

As far as gaming on a eeepc... yeah.. no that doesn't sound fun at all, those are highly limited and underpowered.