TOSHIBA NB100-11R

[GeoffS]

I saw this review comment and the Comet website regarding using Net books with mobile broadband.

 

"This machine runs Linux and does connect to the internet, but only at home. I bought it specifically to be able to connect to the internet whilst away in my motorhome. Unfortuantely none of the phone companies support Linux, ergo it is useless outside the home"

 

Is this really the case?

[grahoom]

I saw this review comment and the Comet website regarding using Net books with mobile broadband.

 

"This machine runs Linux and does connect to the internet, but only at home. I bought it specifically to be able to connect to the internet whilst away in my motorhome. Unfortuantely none of the phone companies support Linux, ergo it is useless outside the home"

 

Is this really the case?

 

No it's not the case, I have Linux (Ubuntu) running on a laptop, and it was VERY easy to get the mobile Dongle from o2 working with it.

[Berty]

I saw this review comment and the Comet website regarding using Net books with mobile broadband.

 

"This machine runs Linux and does connect to the internet, but only at home. I bought it specifically to be able to connect to the internet whilst away in my motorhome. Unfortuantely none of the phone companies support Linux, ergo it is useless outside the home"

 

Is this really the case?

 

It's partly correct. None of the phone compainies *support* Linux, which means that they don't supply any software or help in getting the connection set up and working. Calling their customer support line will yield no help whatsoever.

 

As with most things Linux, if you know how to do it, it can absolutely be done.

 

So the question is, how familiar are you with Linux systems?

 

Cheers,

Berty

[GeoffS]

It's partly correct. None of the phone compainies *support* Linux, which means that they don't supply any software or help in getting the connection set up and working. Calling their customer support line will yield no help whatsoever.

 

As with most things Linux, if you know how to do it, it can absolutely be done.

 

So the question is, how familiar are you with Linux systems?

 

Cheers,

Berty

 

Hi

Thanks for this. I know nothing at all about Linux but at least asking this question may narrow down what someone would be looking to buy. I just want a simple web surfing machine to have with me on board, any other computing I would do at home

/Geoff

[WotEver]

Hi

Thanks for this. I know nothing at all about Linux but at least asking this question may narrow down what someone would be looking to buy. I just want a simple web surfing machine to have with me on board, any other computing I would do at home

/Geoff

 

In that case I would strongly suggest getting a netbook with the Windows OS. You'll get telephone tech support if you have a problem, you'll find it easy to obtain software, and almost anyone will be able to assist you with troubleshooting/setting up. With Linux you're expected to get somewhat more involved with the nitty gritty - something I used to have fun with in the past but my time is more precious now, I just want to turn on a computer and work.

 

If it helps your decision making (you don't mention a budget), after exhaustively researching what was available I recently bought the other half a Samsung NC10 netbook and it's a superb bit of kit - over 6 hours battery life when surfing/emailing. Be aware of what else you might want to do (like plug in camera SD cards etc) because not every netbook has slots for this sort of thing, however interfaces are cheap and easy to purchase. Most netbooks also don't have a DVD drive, so you'll need to get an external (I bought an Acer) DVD rewriter to load 3rd party software.

 

Hope that helps,

Tony

[grahoom]

In that case I would strongly suggest getting a netbook with the Windows OS. You'll get telephone tech support if you have a problem, you'll find it easy to obtain software, and almost anyone will be able to assist you with troubleshooting/setting up. With Linux you're expected to get somewhat more involved with the nitty gritty - something I used to have fun with in the past but my time is more precious now, I just want to turn on a computer and work.

 

I'd avoid windows then !

 

seriously though. The Dongle I got from o2 worked perfectly with Ubuntu. There is plenty of support on the Ubuntu forum for people, and I'd imagine the tech support for a lot of the mobile broadband companies are next to useless.

[whammy]

I too have always been interested in the Linux operating system but until recently I could not find a distribution that worked with all my hardware and software requirements in particular the mobile broadband dongle from 3 that I use onboard. My last attempt was with Linux Mint (which I believe is Ubuntu based), the 3 dongle was plug and play straight from the off so I was very pleased with it except I then had a problem with no sound which I believe has been a problem with the latest version called Gloria ???. Anyway I shelved it again to return at a later time.

As for netbooks I can reccomend a recent purchase of mine the Asus Eee 1000he, It only has a 10 inch screen but it is a very nice piece of kit and am using it in the bedroom as a web surfer, small tv and anything else one uses a computer for, these netbooks mostly come with windows XP installed so you have none of the Vista complaints.

Hope this helps in your decision

 

regards

[deletedaccount]

I've got a dell mini 9 running ubuntu and I'm going to be plugging my brand new 3 dongle into it tonight. I'm fairly certain it'll work and if not I can probably make it work with a bit of fiddling. That said, I use ubuntu at work as well.

[twocvbloke]

Last time I was in Carphone Warehouse, they had this model running XP, aswell as other normally Linux-only netbooks, so might be worth a look there instead if you want guaranteed compatibility...