So thinking about an EeePC 1005P

It's funny: For the better part of the last 2 years I've been avoiding all the hype about netbooks, but now, in the week of Steve Jobs perhaps changing the game once again, I kind of want one … and if it's just for coding while watching TV on my couch or in a café. So, I've been looking around a bit and at first was nearly ready to just order a Dell Mini 10v because of all those stories about how easy it is to get Ubuntu running on it. Not to mention that it's currently on sale on Dell's website. But a two year old CPU and a pain-in-the-butt method of upgrading the RAM? I don't really mind messing around with some hardware for upgrading it it, but if there is something even better, easier to customize and … newer, I'm all for it :-)

Late last night, in some kind of semi-comatose state, I noticed a new EeePC on the website of a local retailer. The 1005P is available right now (at E-Tec) for less than 280EUR, which is really nice for an Atom N450 powered netbook. I, obviously, can't really compare that to other netbooks, but the specs look really nice :-)

What's holding me back right now is twofold: First I naturally wait for what will get announced in Cupertino, but second and more important: I've so far read enough success and failure reports by people trying to install Ubuntu on it to wait a little bit and see what's really going on. There are stories like this one where the user can't get crucial elements like the keyboard to run and then there are more than just a few reports that state that nearly everything is working properly out of the box. The most problematic part seems to be the wifi adapter. Weird… I thought the graphic chip might cause more trouble, but so far most people seem to fight with network driver issues. I guess, I realy should wait a few more days ;-)