Wednesday 13 July 2011
Ping-Eee Netbook OS Review
Hey guys, today I’m going to be reviewing the new Pinguy OS derivative, Ping-Eee. This is a version of the very popular Pinguy OS that is optimised for small netbook screens. I am actually writing this post on my Compaq Mini 110 Netbook which is running Ping-Eee.
Default Ping-Eee Desktop
Above is the default desktop for Ping-Eee, as you can see it looks a lot like the default PinguyOS desktop - pretty slick! The big difference between this and the big brother desktop version is that there are A LOT less applications on this version. VBox isn’t present, Rhythmbox has been replaced by Clementine and all the usual candidates like the MintMenu and Mint Updater are present :)
This distro is based on Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal isn’t running the Unity desktop but Gnome 2.32.1.
Performance
My netbook has a couple of upgrades. I upped the RAM from 1GB to 2GB and I replaced the stock 5400RPM SATA HDD for a 16GB SSD. All in all, performance is good, very good. My system boots in around 8-10 seconds and has very little lag indeed - extremely workable for me as my work horse. Currently running 5 tabs in Chrome I am using a little less than 600MB RAM. I have a Windows XP VM that I use from time to time - this runs from an 8GB SD card and the system RAM hits around 1GB with this VM running.
The basic install is around 4.5GB, with my docs etc all synced via dropbox I have around 50% of my SSD in reserve should I need it. With it only being 4.5GB for a fresh install, those users with an 8GB SSD should have no problems and some space left over.
Conclusion
I have tried many different Operating Systems on my netbook including Elementary OS, Ubuntu 11.04, Meego, Jolicloud even Windows 7! Trying to find the right balance of performance versus stability versus size - Ping-Eee ticks all boxes for me.
After some customisation and and little bit of playing around here is my netbook desktop:
If you want to give Ping-Eee a try then why not download it and give it a go, link below: http://forum.pinguyos.com/Thread-ping-eee-os-netbook-edition-of-pinguy-os–1374