Confessions of a Netbook Programmer
Yes, you read that right. For almost 3 years, I have done almost all of my programming for my university classes using an Acer Aspire One (D255).
My mom had bought a similar one a few years ago, and I fell in love with the tiny machines. I picked mine up in the holiday season of 2010 for less than $200. Since then, I have upgraded it to 2GB of RAM (~$25) and put in a 9-cell battery (~$40). The battery probably doubles the weight, but I get no less than 7-8 on a single charge (probably more, but it lasts so long that I rarely let it go below 20%).
Now, before I really get into the meat of things, I want to address the love-em-or-hate-em attitude everyone has with netbooks. I'm not going to tell you that if you tweak some performance settings just right, you can fire up New Flashy Game 2014, crank the settings all the way up, and get 60+ FPS. I'll be the first to tell you that new games on netbooks rarely go together well (a few indie games being the exceptions).
That being said, it seems like if you tell most people that even Faster Than Light has some issue with the resolution, they instantly assume they are underpowered pieces of garbage and that they should have never been sold. (NB: FTL can be work well on them, with the right settings)
That's where I come in. I will go ahead and tell you that there have been numerous times where I just simply wished my little buddy had a little more horsepower. I'm not an idiot: I would gladly take a laptop that had ridiculously great specs, low profile/weight, and a long-lasting battery. However, I just cannot afford that right now, and I would rather deal with waiting a few extra seconds and only a few games than carry around a 7 lbs behemoth that I can only use for 20 minutes before I need to plug it in again. Like Torvalds regarded about laptops, they simply weren't meant to be workhorses.
Okay, so what can they do?
Now, for those of you still reading, I'll dive deeper into my experiences and advice for using these wonderfully portable more-than-mere-web-browsers for more than just checking email and Facebook. I promise I'll eventually give you something more than a rant (I hope).
First off, if your machine came with Windows XP, dump it. I'm serious. I know a lot of people still regard it as the "best version of Windows", but it's not worth running an OS that hasn't seen updates for some time. Windows 7 does just fine on the little machines, especially if you switch to the "classic" theme, upgrade the RAM, and turn off some of the more... silly Windows services (there is no touch screen, so why would I want touch services?). Grab a copy of Windows 7 32-bit, even if your architecture supports 64-bit (you probably won't ever see more than 3GB in these tiny wonders, so you'll just end up wasting precious RAM).
Or, if you really want to attract the [insert derogatory term describing preferred romantic partner(s), if applicable], then you'll want to go the route of Linux.
I know a lot of people make even more assumptions about Linux than they do about netbooks, but this is neither the time nor the place. All I'll say is:
No, you're not stuck with an interface from 1996.
No, you don't have to learn how to use the command line.
Yes, it does more than just play nethack (see Humble Bundles).
Yes, you'll probably have enough hard drive to dual-boot
If anyone makes fun of you, they're probably emotionally and physically threatened by your apparent 1337 h4Xx0r 5kr115.
Oh, and if you go the Linux route, be sure to at least understand the premise that Linux is NOT Windows.
As far as which distro to use, that's mostly up to your own experience/preference. I will say that regular Ubuntu probably won't run as well as you'd like (whether that's the fault of the netbook or not is debatable). I would highly suggest something more lightweight. You don't have to start compiling Gentoo or reading the Arch Beginner's Guide (I do recommend Arch, for those that have the ability; the same installation has been on my netbook since I bought it).
Your most crucial issue in regards to performance is which desktop environment or window manager you use. Something like Xfce and Openbox are designed with low-end/old machines in mind (there's also fluxbox, dwm, and tons more). If you want to install Xubuntu, that should be fine. If you feel a bit more adventurous, I might recommend something like Crunchbang (Debian-based with Openbox, by default). If anyone wants/needs more info picking a distro (with netbooks or not), feel free to ask me about them. I can spend hours talking about this stuff.
That's actually a better question than I'd like to admit, but let's finally talk about the good things.
With an Intel Atom running at 1.6 Ghz (Megahertz Myth in action) and virtually no worthwhile GPU to speak of, it's obvious what one can't do with a nebook. However, a few things that you absolutely can do and that I have done include (not all are software development, obviously):
Play games like Faster Than Light, Dwarf Fortress, and nethack.
Browse internet, such as (sigh) checking email, Reddit, Facebook...
Run Photoshop/GIMP (be mindful of ~CS3 and up requiring a higher resolution to save; CS2 works a treat, even in WINE)
Watch movies/shows: I recommend the youtube-viewer or youtube-dl scripts or watching things you've downloaded (Netflix will work, if you're in Windows, but only just barely, in my experience)
Hook it up to an external monitor/TV and use it like a tiny, portable, quiet HTPC
Get a USB DVD drive and use it like a portable DVD player (haven't tested this, myself)
Learn VIM (or Sublime Text (or both!)!)
Go work in a remote corner of your office/school/attic/house for a few hours, since you won't have to worry about power for a long time.
Learn to develop your Ruby/Python/whatever powered site without using an IDE (see VIM/ST).
Learn to program Python and use it for everything.
Anything you could do with a laptop-ized Raspberry Pi, and then some.
I hope this post has helped some people at least see netbooks in a better light. I know I didn't get too deep into specifics. I would be more than happy to continue posting about netbooks or just low-end computing, in general!
Lastly, while this sounds strange to most, sometimes your best ideas and experiences come to you when you are given some sort of limitation. It's really an extension of need facilitating invention.
