Netbook Project
Date: 022418

I jumped all-in on the Google Cloud.

The idea was to purchase a Chromebook. They were a little too expensive. I went with a N23 from Lenovo. I love the design of the notebook. It's small screen, tight case and touchscreen are awesome. It doesn't win awards for storage space or processor/memory, but it sure does suit my needs.

I thought about installing Chromium OS on it, but I really just skipped right to Linux. Choosing the distro wasn't hard, but I did give my old friend, Fedora, a try before deciding on Arch.

It turns out the more I learn, the more I love about Arch Linux. It's allowed me to completely customize the software on the N23. It's not bloated like recent Fedora Workstation releases were. Believe me, I tried to run my old favorite distro. It was way to system resource intensive and the screen rotation was generic, and the list goes on. For the N23 I needed a lightweight distribution. With Arch, it can be whatever you want. It's up to you how bloated you want it to be. Arch was easy to install using the documentation (which is excellent). It works very well for what I will use this netbook for. It allows the user to totally build what they need from the ground up. It's genius.

Currently, I'm using the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment and Chrome. This is a pretty good combination on this device.

So far, the experience with Arch Linux and its community has been very good. I'm looking forward to being part of it.

Obviously, I highly recommend Arch. Please take a look at their website and learn about its awesomeness.

Update: 031418

I really want to get the most out of the hardware on the N23 so, I'm using LXDE which uses %60 less memory then Plasma. So far, I love LXDE simplicity and minimalist style. It leaves plenty of memory for other applications too.

Update: 031518

Using Arch and LXDE, my system config is as good as it gets. Fast, reliable, efficient. It's not bloated.
Only the packages I want and services I want are running. It's magical. Arch has allowed me to fully taylor my OS and applications to suit my hardware and needs. I'm enjoying this for the moment and will let you know how it all turns out.