1

I have an Acer Aspire One netbook and I want run Linux on it, but I don't know which distribution I should choose. It has a 1.66 GHz Intel Atom processor and about 1 GB RAM, so it shouldn't be too heavy.

loklaan
  • 800
  • 1
  • 7
  • 18
Lennart291994
  • 21
  • http://askubuntu.com/questions/65083/what-different-desktop-environments-and-shells-are-available – Bruno Pereira May 21 '12 at 18:00
  • If you're interested in considering non-Ubuntu distributions as well, then this might be a better question for http://unix.stackexchange.com. – Eliah Kagan May 21 '12 at 18:03

4 Answers4

3

I advise you to consider Lubuntu and Xubuntu.

Eliah Kagan
  • 117,780
Raja G
  • 102,391
  • 106
  • 255
  • 328
2

I have an Acer Aspire One D257 and have a couple problems, there is a small pause that I only notice when programming [0] and the sound has stopped working in 12.04, but other then that I think Ubuntu is fine, if a little slower than on a full blown Desktop computer or laptop.

If speed is important to you you might want to consider Xfce or Xubuntu which uses Xfce instead of Gnome or Unity by default.

[0] How to diagnose Ubuntu CPU spikes / IO wait?

Community
  • 1
Jeff Welling
  • 924
2

After trying a number of distros, I have finally settled on LXLE, based on Lubuntu, to run on my Acer Aspire One 722. It works really well if you do this:

  1. Set boot order (F2 on boot) with NETWORK boot as first option, USB HDD second and internal HDD third.

  2. Boot LXLE from a usb stick use unetbootin to install the ISO in Linux, or Yumi or similar in Windows)

  3. Link to your wi-fi and make sure the mouse cursor moves - try moving it around for a minute or so - if it freezes, you need to connect a wired network and re-boot.

  4. Start the installation process once you have it booted from live usb.

  5. Use the 'advanced' option with gparted to partition your disk, if you are starting from scratch. I set up 4 partitions as follows:

    • a boot partition of 250Mb
    • a root partition of 25Gb
    • a swap partition (at the end) of 8Gb
    • a home partition of the rest (about 260Gb)

  6. Finish the install and re-boot, using the ethernet connection if you had a frozen cursor earlier.

  7. Go top this page and follow the instructions for power management http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1811178 and the rest is useful too.

  8. If you have any sound problems, go here - http://bernaerts.dyndns.org/linux/74-ubuntu/202-ubuntu-acer-ao722

Welcome to a fast and easy to use netbook!

Phil Chandler
  • 21
1

I've been using an Acer AO722 for nearly two years, and I have tested lots of distros. Here are some findings:

  • avoid any distro with KDE, for they overload the system. CPU temperature gets very high!
  • Unity and Gnome are Ok, everything works fine (as long as you fix the boot order - see above answers), but they consume too much memory.
  • XFCE distros work fine, too, with very low memory consume. I've been using Xubuntu 12.4 for more than a year, and it's on top of my GRUB order! The problem with the XFCE distros is the sound issue(s). I've managed to fix it, but I can't remember how (sorry)! It has to do with some lines in the Configuration Editor.
  • LXDE distros have no sound at all, and i couldn't find a way to fix it (I've tryed Lubuntu and Peppermint).
  • Bodhi Linux is great and works fine, after configuring the workspace.
  • Puppy Linux Slako is another great distro. Everything working fine, but wireless configuration can be tricky.

My final choices are Xubuntu and Linux Mint.

Cesar Neves
  • 11
  • 1