I've been running Windows Vista Ultimate on my Acer Aspire One netbook (with 1.5GB of RAM, and a 30GB hard drive) for a while now, without any problems or performance issues. I have the full Aero Glass experience, and I didn't need to do any performance tweaking or fiddling with services. I even made a few very crappy videos to show it all off. Apparently, Steven Sinofsky thinks Vista - and therefore, Windows 7 - can run just fine on a netbook too, and that's why he demonstrated Windows 7 running on a netbook this morning during the Windows 7 keynote. In an interview with Ars he gave a little more details.
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Member since:2006-02-05
Member since:2005-11-11
the faster SSDs in the 900 and 901 are not bad at all, at least with Xandros on them. Most MLC SSDs pretty much suck though.
I've also got Windows installed on an SDHC card to use with my 900*. Using EWF**, no changes are made to the SD card (until/unless I choose to commit all changes, they are stored in RAM) so any write penalties are thrown out the window. This could of course be done on the SSD too.
I think it's pretty neat. Don't like how a change has affected things? Reboot without commit. Satisfied with the current state? Commit and write it all out at once instead of in many speed sapping random writes.
I wish I could do this in Linux (maybe someone knows how). There's tmpfs of course (though AFAIK they start off emtpy, so it'd be hard to mount / as one 
and I don't know of any easy way to commit changes). Maybe one can do a unionfs with the fs where changes are recorded being a tmpfs? Again though, how to commit any changes if I decide they are beneficial?
ANYWAY flash based works fine for me with Linux and Windows. None of the stuttering people can see with slower SSDs or no tweaks to prevent random writes all over the place. Out of 4 laptops in the house I've had to order 3 new hard drives in the last year and a half, so I rather appreciate not having a mechanical drive that can get banged around.
*For Starcraft, which can't quite run at full speed in wine on the 900
**Enhanced Write Filter: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/814257
***EDIT*** beaten by Thom
Edited 2008-10-29 08:56 UTC
Member since:2008-10-23
Starcraft is the top of the platinum list in wine app db:
http://appdb.winehq.org/
It means that it runs flawlessly. Is there really a performance hit on your 900? There shouldn't. On my desktop at least, it runs just as fast or faster than on Windows.
Anyway, puppy linux does just what you describe. By default, it does commit your changes every half an hour to the pup_save file. You can have several pup_save files and use them to create several branches where you commit some different changes.
Edited 2008-10-29 09:58 UTC
Member since:2005-07-06
. I don't know...the Acer Inspire One mentioned in the article perhaps? The SSD version is quite a bit cheaper than the mechanical HDD version. Sure the SSD version has 8GB of storage as opposed to 120 or 160 GB, but it is cheaper.
Member since:
2005-07-13
"If you're buying a netbook, avoid the SSD models. They might be cheaper, but you are going to get extremely frustrated with the SSD."
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If you can show me a laptop with an SSD HDD in it that is CHEAPER than a good old fashiond moving parts drive, then i want you to help me pick out my next notebook because i have yet to see that option make one cheaper
now if you are reffereing to notebooks that ONLY offer that and are cheap or intended for developing countries, then i understand.