[Cialug] HP mini 1030NR review

[Matt Stanton]

Until recently I didn't have a clue what a netbook was.  I've been 
pretty behind the times in keeping up with computer hardware information 
other than the nicer nVidia GPUs.  So, when I saw the other members of 
the LUG at the meetings with those tiny little 'laptops', I just figured 
they paid a lot of money for them.  I have always preferred to put my 
money in my desktop machine, because I can always throw a couple of 
computer parts at a desktop machine when it starts giving up on 
performance... I can't afford to buy the fastest computer on the market 
every year or two.  Anyway, I ended up finding out that these netbooks 
are actually relatively cheap (by cheap, I mean I could buy one for just 
a little bit over what I would spend on a new graphics card).

Well, I ended up getting the HP mini 1030NR from bestbuy.  It came with 
a 16GB SSD, 10.2" widescreen display at 1024x600, wireless b/g wlan 
card, the standard 1.6GHz atom processor, 3cell battery, and an addon 
2GB flash drive that fits neatly into a little slot on the side.  Plus, 
the HP minis are pleasing to look at.  It had XP home installed by 
default, which I wasn't going to let stand.  I charged the battery while 
I downloaded the Ubuntu Netbook Remix and loaded it onto a flash drive 
with flashnul to make it bootable.

The UNR live 'cd' (or live flashdrive?) booted up nicely, and I liked 
the way it utilized the small screen of the HP mini, so I wiped XP off 
the SSD and installed it.  Everything works quite nicely.  UNR detected 
and set up the wireless lan easily (using a broadcom restricted driver), 
and everything but sound is working perfectly.

Now, the sound card works just fine.  I can plug my headphones into the 
jack and hear everything.  The only real problem with the soundcard is 
that I can't get the built-in speakers to play anything.  I suspect that 
they would sound like crap, and the headphones I have are some nice Bose 
deals, so there's no reason to complain unless there was a youtube video 
or something that I wanted to show someone on the netbook.

I'd imagine that a much more versed linux geek would be able to get this 
working with a little hacking around.  It seems from what I've found by 
googling that the netbook speakers problem is fixed in 2.6.29, but 
jaunty is rolling with 2.6.28.  Every time I've ever compiled a linux 
kernel for a modern version of linux, I've managed to break a large 
number of things, so I guess I'm waiting another 6 months.

Anyway, I give it 4.5 out of 5 thumbs up or stars or something.