I am thinking of buying a netbook for home instead of bring my work laptop home with me all the time. Do portable apps still work with netbooks that have usb drives? some state that they have windows xp installed. others say they work on linux which I have never come across before.
Is a netbook a simplified laptop without the optical drives?
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A netbook is just a small laptop with no CD/DVD drive and a slower processor, usually. If it runs a full version of Windows (XP, Vista, 7), Portable Apps should works on it. They will not work on Windows CE or on Linux.
If you're planning on doing a lot of typing on your netbook, take a close look at the keyboards before you buy. Some of them put keys in odd places to make everything smaller. It would get really annoying to keep hitting the up arrow key when you are trying for the right shift key.
Actually, many of the portable apps will work on Linux using the wine not-emulator. But I agree the least difficult approach is to use a full Windows (not CE, not Mobile) version. I also agree with the keyboard recommendation if you are a touch typist.
Netbook hard drives are tiny; to save space, load all the apps you can onto an external drive, such as a USB key.
I've heard that netbooks are just about unusable after a year because newer software requires more power than a netbook can deliver.
Define "tiny". My wife's Acer netbook has a 160GB hd. You must be thinking of the original netbooks from 2 yrs ago.
Ed
It's not likely a 160GB SSD though, it's probably a 160GB 4200RPM laptop hard drive, am I right?
Even if it's a little 32GB SSD, that's still not too small for a few portable apps or even the full suite.
Just giving the benefit of the doubt. I've not heard of netbooks being light on capacity.
depends. The asus linux-powered one from the beginning and even some of the ones now have ssd.
Mostly I see regular magnetic disk drives.
I would go with the ssd though
And a big sdhc, since most have integrated readers 
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
i downloaded the linux once and tried it in a virtual machine. I didn't care for it. You'd be better off installing the ubuntu netbook remix. If you use the linux, you can use repositories for what ever you (syanptic, that sudo apt-get install you see all the time)
If its windows, yeah, using a usb drive with portableapps is a excellent thing. But the windows has to be something like win7, vista, xp etc.
Too many lonely hearts in the real world
Too many bridges you can burn
Too many tables you can't turn
Don't wanna live my life in the real world
Also note the screen size. If it's too short, the top or bottom of the menu gets cut off. This has been widely reported, and I don't think it was ever solved.
I love my EEE PC! I have an 8G that I bought Oct 08.
I have my customized version of Windows XP running on it.
I have NEVER had a problem of any kind using Portable apps with it.
Running from the USB drive (there are 3 USB ports) or from the SD card.
You can get an SD card for the media reader and it works perfectly as a second hard drive if you need the space.
I have a 16GB SDHC card and I have ALL of the Portable Apps on it.
A 4GB stick can hold all of them, and mount just the ones you need to use.
I have even used the netbook to transfer files from one usb drive to another usb drive.
You can even use separate USB drives or SD cards for different operating systems.
Linux, WinXP, Win7, Puppy Linux, Ubuntu, or even EEEbuntu.
There are forums for sharing software finds and hardware changes.
Not just EEE, but other netbooks.
Portable Apps is just one of the Great things I have found since I started using the Netbook.
I have has a Asus 1000HE for about 9 months now and LOVE it. I have not found any of the portableapps that it will not run. It has a 1.66gHrz processor which is not a speed demon but it will run almost any office type application and play music and video just fine.
Max out the ram. Mine came with 1gig which I upped to 2gig and that helped a lot.
I have the PortableApps.com suite w/ the MODed menu installed on a 16gig sdhc card and it works just fine. Occasionally I will remove the sd card to use it in a desktop at home.
The smaller keyboard and screen is not an issue for me because a lot of the time I plug in an external keyboard, mouse and monitor. I take it to work and use it 95% of the time there and at home I also have that set up. When I am on the road or away from a desk I find the keyboard does the job just fine and the screen is OK too.
When my warranty runs out I will replace the screen with one of the aftermarket touch screens.
Paul
Took the plunge last night and bought a Samsung N130. Not had much time to play with it yet but on first use I am quite impressed and all my usual portable apps appear to work fine.