I've been thinking about ditching Vista for awhile, and a couple days ago I pulled the trigger. My Fujitsu U810 netbook lacks an optical drive, so I used Unetbootin to install Ubuntu 9.04.

Unfortunately, that process didn't go as smoothly I would have liked. For some reason Unetbootin didn't download the GNOME graphical environment. So when I booted into Ubuntu, all I had was the text-based command line. 

No problem, I just used apt-get to install GNOME. I've done this before, but it was very helpful having the Palm Pre at hand to look up the relevant articles on the Web.

EDIT: I have found a much better way to install Ubuntu 9.04 using a bootable flash drive.

My Fujitsu netbook has been acting wonky lately: won't shut down properly, etc. If you run Windows Vista you unfortunately probably already know the drill. This isn't the first time I've had this kind of problem, but unlike the other times, I now seem to be at a bit of an impasse. In the past I was able to fix my problems with a useful utility built into Vista. You run cmd as Administrator and then type sfc /scannow. Hit Enter, and the utility scans your system and repairs corrupted files.

Um, except when it doesn't, like now. Crap.

Let's have a look at the log file:

Great. Well, a couple Google searches inform me that I can pull these files off the Vista install DVD without reinstalling Vista entirely. Problem is, although I do have the DVD, my netbook lacks an optical drive. Yeah. Fujitsu actually included a backup DVD with a computer that lacks a DVD drive. Nice.

So, I guess I could mount the image on a flash drive. But the question is, do I really want to go through the hassle? This computer sucks at running Vista even when it works properly. And the hard disk is almost full. I am really tempted to just wipe Vista and install Linux instead. I ask myself, what will I lose if I do this?

I have MS Office 2007 Ultimate installed, but I really only use Word and PowerPoint very much. I actually uninstalled Outlook, Folder Share, and OneNote awhile ago because I never used them and I wanted them out of the command shell. OpenOffice can handle my document needs, so really I would not miss MS Office 2007.

I would lose Zumodrive because they don't have a Linux client yet. But I only have the free account and anyway I could still access the Web interface. Dropbox does have a Linux client, so I'm covered there. I have moved all my must-have files to Dropbox and Evernote, so files are covered. A version of Firefox will run on Linux. I'm pretty sure 7Zip runs on Linux.

The only software that I really use a lot that doesn't have a Linux client is Evernote. I wonder if Evernote would run in WINE? Even if it doesn't, Evernote has an excellent Web interface which is almost exactly like the desktop client. Probably not too huge of a sacrifice.

So really, it comes down to hardware support. I tried PCLinux2008 and Damn Small Linux on this machine about a year ago. I was amazed at the speed of DSL - it made me realize that Vista sucks, not my netbook. However, I couldn't get my Atheros WiFi chipset to work in DSL, so I regretfully gave up on it. PCLinux2008 did play nice with my WiFi, so I used it for awhile. Unfortunately, dual-monitor support was not good. I could use a second monitor but it just mirrored the first. I tried some suggested tweaks without success and eventually went back to Vista because dual monitors work without any problems.

I wonder if the dual-monitor situation has been resolved since then. Has anyone had success with running a Linux Distro on the Fujitsu U810 with a dual-monitor setup?