Windows 7 Starter on an Asus Eee Seashell

I finally broke down and ordered a netbook. I was waiting for an acceptable balance between price, performance, and battery life, and though I probably jumped the gun a bit, I chose this one. The main use is to read ebooks and get some writing done during slack times at work. (I work permanent night shift at a hospital.)

So it looks like I'm getting Windows 7 Starter along with this thing. My first impulse would be to just kill it out of the box and install my OS of choice, Linux. But I've been playing with Windows 7 on a friend's computer over the past few weeks, and it's not that bad. I've seen it run decently in a VM with only one GB of RAM, even running Aero. The starter version is a bit crippled, but there are some solutions out there:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/47294-desktop-background-change-windows-7-starter.html

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/53651-aero-enable-unsupported-editions-windows-7-a.html

Anyway, I'd like to hear about anyone's experiences with the Asus and/or Windows 7 Starter. Or experiences of people who've put Linux on this machine. Thoughts? Condemnations? Gossip?

I know that I'm probably the last geek on the planet without a netbook, but this is kind of exciting for me

I've just been reading up on all the problems with the model I'm getting ... that's always fun to do once the order is already in the pipe

Mainly there are problems upgrading to 2GB RAM, but this is an issue mainly specific to Win7, especially since Linux doesn't need a RAM upgrade to run well. With a 250 GB hard drive I've got lots of room for even a few Linux distros. I could always put XP on it, too, for that matter.

As long as the keyboard and battery are up to par, I'm good, and these got decent mention in the reviews I've seen. This little machine will allow me to use a computer where otherwise it would be impractical. That makes it worthwhile.

I could have waited just a bit longer and got something perfect. (Just kidding, because that's never what happens in real life.)

So how much "limited RAM" do you have? XP should be fine with 1 GB. I ran it on an older desktop with 512 MB with no problems, though I guess the fancy stuff could bog down with that.

ajkjd01 said:

I bought the Eee and I did upgrade to 2G and have had few problems with the upgrade or running Win7.

Click to expand...

Apparently the memory upgrade on this model has to be compatible with the ASUS Super Hybrid Engine, which is their new power-saving technology, so it sounds a bit fussier than usual.

I don't find Win7 that bad, but I've already loaded a USB stick with the Archlinux install media, so I'm ready when the box finally comes