My Dream Dual Boot Netbook

November 26, 2009 1:39 PM

Help me build my perfect netbook!

I've had my iBook G4 since I started Uni over 6 years ago, but it's starting to show it's age and things are starting to play up (apart from the battery!)

So I've ordered myself a Samsung NC20 with a 2Gb of RAM upgrade. I'd really like to dual or triple boot between Windows, OSX, and....something.

1. It comes with XP, but I'm tempted to go for a Windows 7 upgrade. Thoughts?

I like OSX and wouldn't mind keeping it an option.

2. I'd like a flavour of Linux or possible the new Google OS. Thoughts?

3. I really like how quickly my current iBook waked up when I open the lid. Can I expect the same thing from my new NC20?

4. Where is the best guide to acheive what I want? I've never dual booted anything before.

posted by lemonfridge to computers & internet (15 answers total)

I've nothing really helpful to add other than the fact that for reference's sake if anybody else is considering this route, some netbook models appear to be more amenable to hackintoshing than others [1] [2] (both links admittedly out of date) so it's probably better to ask this kind of thing before placing an order for one.
posted by juv3nal at 1:48 PM on November 26, 2009

1. I think you should stick with XP. Windows 7 is very likely to be sluggish on netbook hardware.

2. Well, what are you hoping to accomplish? What's your goal? What do you plan to use this thing for, and why do you need to boot two or three operating systems? I'm kinda guessing that your goal is not to play around with installing operating systems because you think it's fun (frankly, that's the goal of most folks who have triple-boot netbooks).

3. With a properly set-up and tweaked-out OS install, sure. Maybe 'expect' isn't the right word, but it's attainable.

4. I'm not sure exactly what you want. If you just wish to dual-boot between XP and one of the more user-friendly Linux distros, the Linux installer will do most of the heavy lifting for you, and you should be able to find a guide on the distro's website/wiki/forum. Unfortunately, this can not be said about OSX. How much experience do you currently have with this kind of stuff?
posted by box at 1:50 PM on November 26, 2009

1. I think you should stick with XP. Windows 7 is very likely to be sluggish on netbook hardware.

Not really.
posted by juv3nal at 1:52 PM on November 26, 2009

I don't think Chrome OS is quite there yet. Give them a bit to refine the experience and try it then.

For Linux, I've had pretty good luck with Ubuntu on my Lenovo S10, but that may not be a viable option for an NC20 due to odd screen resolution and driver issues. This guy did all your "install distro, sigh, vape distro, install next one" homework for you, though, and appears to have a pretty solid article on dual-booting Windows XP and Fedora Core 11 (a variant of Red Hat).
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 1:54 PM on November 26, 2009

Also, if you know a geek, we are generally quite amenable to offerings of beer, meals out, and so on in exchange for initially setting up your dual boot. We may be less amenable to constant "how do I do this" questions, however, depending on our patience levels and general feelings about tech support vs. just doing something for you ourselves. If you're nervous about setting up dual boot, find your geek and buy them off.
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 1:57 PM on November 26, 2009

I might have higher standards for snappiness than average, but XP wasn't as responsive as I'd prefer on my netbook (Lenovo S10, if it's relevant) until I disabled a bunch of menu animations and removed Themes support and suchlike. I'm told that Windows 7 has even more of those kinds of things. I've never used it, though.

Dunno if this is relevant, but note that the NC20's processor is a 1.3ghz Via Nano, rather than the netbook-default 1.6ghz Intel Atom.
posted by box at 1:58 PM on November 26, 2009

Oh, and, last of all, my buddy just put Windows 7 on his EeePC and reports reasonable results, nothing that could be described as "sluggish." Anecdotal and not on your hardware, but there you go.

(I'll stop now. I'm in an airplane and it's affecting my ability to just compose a post end to end.)
posted by fairytale of los angeles at 1:58 PM on November 26, 2009

Disclaimer: I have a dual booting NC10 with XP Home and Ubuntu Netbook Remix, with the latter being my main OS.

1) Go for it. Windows 7 tends to use up more battery and it will be a little more sluggish than XP but it should work well enough with 2GB of RAM. The new features make it worth it but YMMV.
1.OSX) Read this. tl;dr: it's not worth it unless you really like tinkering with computers, and even then it's more of a 'yay I made it work, now let's reinstall XP' thing.
2) Ubuntu works really well on my NC10. It consumes more battery than XP though.
3) Ubuntu wakes up nearly instantaneously.
posted by Memo at 1:59 PM on November 26, 2009

Why do you want OSX on your netbook? Is just because you're familiar with it, after using it for the last 6 years? Because I personally like dual (or triple) booting machines, don't mind tinkering to make Ubuntu work on various hardware configurations, etc etc, and even I wouldn't have the patience to try to get a Hackintosh working on a netbook. But then again, I'm not a Mac gal; give me just about sufficiently mature Linux distro and I'm happy. Being a dual-boot newbie, I'd definitely start with something a slightly less lofty goal. Because you'll also soon fine that even though you have a dual/triple bootable machine, you're not going to actually want to bother rebooting all the time anyway. One OS will quickly become your default.

If you just want to play around with different operating systems, may I suggest virtualization? VirtualBox is fun! And you can have almost as many OSes as your little heart desires, without having to repartition your hard drive.
posted by cgg at 2:32 PM on November 26, 2009

The Register published a decent story about the best Linux distros for netbooks. I use CrunchEee with some enthusiasm, even though my netbook is a MSI Wind.

However, having tried several OSs this past year, I usually stick to the standard Windows XP it came with -- be it a version slimmed down with nLite.

I use the Linux version only in surroundings where I don't trust Microsoft to be secure enough -- like in spots that offer free WiFi.
posted by ijsbrand at 3:25 PM on November 26, 2009

It comes down to what you plan to do with it. I have an Acer Aspire One that I love but it's no replacement for my desktop. I use it almost entirely for web browsing or as an ssh platform. If you have the same needs, then the underlying OS doesn't matter as much. If you need to run local apps then make sure the OS supports them.

If you run Windows, then Win 7 is probably just as good as XP but you'll need to tweak it. If you run Ubuntu, be sure to check out the netbook remix. I wouldn't recommend running OS X on non-apple hardware unless hacking the OS is your idea of fun.
posted by Loudmax at 4:40 PM on November 26, 2009

> 2. I'd like a flavour of Linux or possible the new Google OS. Thoughts?

The Chromium OS project site hosts a table of compatible and semi-compatible hardware; I don't see your NC20 on the list, but if the NC20 shares identical or nearly-identical specs with something there, give it a whirl.

But Chrome OS is intended to be only feature-packed enough to power a web browser, with very few additional amenities. To that extent, whacking it onto a netbook that can already run a contemporary full-featured OS is going to be a fun hack but there's not much point beyond that; whatever flavor of Linux, Windows or Mac OS you have on there now will do everything Chrome OS will do, plus considerably more. Instead of building a partition to dual-boot into Chrome (which won't officially be available for half a year,) run it as a virtual machine on whatever OS you've got now.

I think Android on current netbooks has more potential than Chrome because it accommodates apps executed outside the browser, and because Google explicitly says Android is designed to appear on netbooks eventually. From the Google Blog announcement of Chrome OS: "Google Chrome OS is a new project, separate from Android. Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks. Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web, and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems. While there are areas where Google Chrome OS and Android overlap, we believe choice will drive innovation for the benefit of everyone, including Google."
posted by ardgedee at 5:13 PM on November 26, 2009

I have my 900A EeePC set up to dual boot between XP and PupEee. I've found that I usually surf with Pupeee, mainly because the download speed is about twice as fast. I've done all of the XP speed-ups, too. Some people rag on Puppy distros because you run as root, but I haven't found it to be a problem.
posted by rfs at 8:54 PM on November 26, 2009

juv3nal: "I've nothing really helpful to add other than the fact that for reference's sake if anybody else is considering this route, some netbook models appear to be more amenable to hackintoshing than others"

I have OS X working on an NC10 and it was pretty easy. I except the NC20 will be similar (though do check for yourself). It installed straight away and I just needed to apply some packages to get external sound and tap-clicking on the trackpad working. Oh yeah, I had to replace the wifi card to get that working but that's a five minute job and I'm not sure it's the case for the NC20. I did make it harder for myself by messing up the booting but, if you're comfortable installing OSes and the like, it's relatively idiotproof.

box: "1. I think you should stick with XP. Windows 7 is very likely to be sluggish on netbook hardware."

Windows 7 usually runs comparably to XP and faster than Vista on netbooks.

Memo: "OSX) Read this. tl;dr: it's not worth it unless you really like tinkering with computers, and even then it's more of a 'yay I made it work, now let's reinstall XP' thing."

I installed OS X "just because" and now use it as my primary OS on my netbook even though it uses a bit more battery. The problem with the Ctrl and Windows keys being switched can be easily fixed in System Preferences. Frankly any minor niggles (which are mostly due to the form factor of netbooks themselves) are more than made up for by the price differential between a netbook and a "proper" Mac laptop.
posted by turkeyphant at 5:30 AM on November 27, 2009

I triple-boot OSX, Win 7, and the Ubuntu Netbook Remix on an MSI Wind. Until recently, I had XP installed instead of Win 7.

I spend about 75% of the time booted to Linux, 20% in OSX, and very little time in Windows. All three run quite well with 2GB of memory.
posted by toxic at 9:43 AM on November 27, 2009