[1800yolk]

HEY! Glad to join ya'll on these forums

Just got my Dell Duo in the mail, and the first day I had it, i played around with Window, optimized it by removing all the bloatware, and things were still a little sluggish but not too bad.

Day 2, I completely repartitioned the hard drive and tried Ubuntu 11.10 on it. It was actually pretty sluggish, but I never took the time to switch it to the simpler graphical interface it offers, so I may come back to it at some point. Ubuntu 11.10 has 2 versions of Ubiquity and also a Gnome 3 option packaged into it, and I only tried the default, fancy Ubiquity version.

Day 3, I'm running Fedora 15. I'm really impressed with how it runs, and have the touchscreen working like it should be The only thing I think isn't working is the extra touchpad functions, such as tapping to click, or two finger swiping to scroll and so on. When I figure out how to get that to work I'll post that here

So I guess my question is, anybody out there running this with linux?

The popular linux choices on the internet for the Inspiron Duo seem to be:
Ubuntu 10.10 Netbook remix
Bodhi
Jolicloud

But like I said, I loaded up with Fedora 15 and am really loving it, much prettier than any operating system I've ever used, and is much more responsive than Windows was. Even have a Google Chrome extension that lets me drag web pages like you would on a smart phone

[lord_simon3]

I just got my Duo a week ago. I tried to clean up the default dell install but in the end I just did a clean install of Windows.

I also tried Ubuntu 11.10 and found it really sluggish. Even more so than my cleaned up dell install was. I did install Xubuntu and found it faster but didn't really use it too much. I installed Android x86 and found it super fast but the big problem is its based on Android 2.3 and hardly any apps work. I can't wait for Google to release a native x86 Android source like they promised. Fedora 15 was another one I was going to try, I'm happy to hear you found it faster than Ubuntu.

[1800yolk]

Originally Posted by lord_simon3

I just got my Duo a week ago. I tried to clean up the default dell install but in the end I just did a clean install of Windows.

I also tried Ubuntu 11.10 and found it really sluggish. Even more so than my cleaned up dell install was. I did install Xubuntu and found it faster but didn't really use it too much. I installed Android x86 and found it super fast but the big problem is its based on Android 2.3 and hardly any apps work. I can't wait for Google to release a native x86 Android source like they promised. Fedora 15 was another one I was going to try, I'm happy to hear you found it faster than Ubuntu.

If you liked the feel of Ubuntu but your main problem was that it was sluggish, I would give it another go, but try using Unity-2d instead of the default Unity-3d. It should be an option at logon, but may need to be installed in the software center.

I'm really enjoying fedora 15, and find it to be quite zippy, but I definitely wish it had the software manager that Ubuntu has. That, and the nifty fullscreen feature that it implements. Luckily, Fedora plans to eventually add a software manager like that.

[lord_simon3]

I read about the Unity 2d option. I was going to try that and Fedora 16 today and see which I like better. I also gave a though to trying out KDE's netbook interface via OpenSuse. Ubuntu is definitely more polished from a user standpoint and I like how slick 11.10 feels but I can't handle how sluggish it is. Hopefully the 2d option will fix that.

[lord_simon3]

I played around with a number of choices and here are my opinions.

Ubuntu 11.10
Pros: Very slick and polished. Most things 'just work'.
Cons: While still very useable the Unity-2d interface was a little slower than I'd like.

Fedora 16
Pros: Almost as slick and polished as Ubuntu but runs much smoother.
Cons: Not as widely used as Ubuntu so less help is available if needed. The package manager is not as nice as Ubuntu's.

OpenSuse 11.4
Pros: I really like the look and feel of the plasma netbook interface. I might try the KDE version of Fedora.
Cons: Touchscreen did not work in netbook mode.

I think I'll give OpenSuse 12.1 a try when it releases in a week

x86 Android 2.3
This is exactly what I am looking for except that most apps don't work. I am eagerly waiting for a native x86 Android source to be released. I am going to try experimenting with an Android-in-Windows app called Bluestack.

JoliCould 1.2
Very fast but I don't want an OS that requires internet connectivity to use.

[1800yolk]

Thanks for the breakdown! I think I got lucky choosing Fedora, but I'll be looking forward to your OpenSuse review when you give that a shot, I gave it a thought but never took the time to try it out. The last time I used it I liked it though

[penmaker]

I installed OpenSuSE 12.1 on my duo. I have dual boot to OpenSuSE or Win-7 for what ever that is worth. I am using the KDE desktop, with the supplied netbook configuration, the touch screen works, keyboard and touch pad work, usb mouse works. I have not setup wifi or blue tooth yet, maybe today. Performance is good so far but I have not used any of the apps yet. I need to find an soft keyboard for it so that I can use it in tablet mode in meetings which is what I bought the duo for in the first place.

[penmaker]

Last night I got wifi and bluetooth working, both seem to work well. I use blootooth for a mouse conneciton, mostly in tablet mode. This morning I changed to OpenSuSE 12.1 64bit, the installation went smoothly and I got everything working again but there are some other issues that will most likely make me go back to the 32bit version. When you start it up on battery power and plug in external power or place it in the sound dock it crashes the desktop. Not sure why but it does. The sound dock thing was a problem with the 32bit version but not the external power supply. Performance seems to be good, battery life is not so good but that may be because I have been doing a lot of internet downloads which greatly increase the disk activity. I will post again in a day or two.

[penmaker]

1800yolk, I have a question for you. What did you have to do to get the touch screen to work with Fedora 15? I just installed Fedora 16 last night, it seem to work really well on the Duo but I have not been able to get the touch screen to work yet. Thanks.

[abdeir]

Ubuntu 11.10:
Overall good in unity 2d
Backtrack:
Perfect
Android 4.0:
Good but has some issues (sound, background, camera)