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 Channel Futures

Open Source


Review: Ubuntu on the Latitude 2100 Netbook

  • Written by Christopher Tozzi
  • January 7, 2010
As regular readers of WorksWithU are aware, I recently purchased a Latitude 2100 netbook from Dell and am pretty happy about it.  Now that I've used it for a couple weeks, it's time for a review of its performance under Ubuntu.

Before getting into the Ubuntu-specific aspects of the netbook, let's start with the basics.

Hardware overview

As regular readers of WorksWithU are aware, I recently purchased a Latitude 2100 netbook from Dell and am pretty happy about it.  Now that I’ve used it for a couple weeks, it’s time for a review of its performance under Ubuntu.

Before getting into the Ubuntu-specific aspects of the netbook, let’s start with the basics.

Hardware overview

My netbook came with a 6-cell battery, an Intel 945 graphics chipset, Intel 5100 wireless and a 1.3 megapixel webcam.  It weighs in at just under 3 pounds, placing it a bit on the heavy side for netbooks (Dell’s Mini 10, by comparison, is closer to 2.5 pounds).

Overall, the hardware seems very sturdy, and the 16-gigabyte SSD drive makes me extra confident when hauling the machine around.  The 2100 is a bit unorthodox in that there’s no latch for closing the lid, but it seems to stay shut on its own without a problem.

The keyboard, at 10×4 inches, is about 8% smaller than a standard laptop’s, but is easy enough to use.  My only complaints are that the arrow keys are a bit small, and the trackpad would be a little larger in an ideal world, but the input devices are comfortable enough as they are.

The 10.1 inch screen is obviously small–this is a netbook–but the image is clear and the backlight can be adjusted in ten increments, which is useful for saving power.  In addition, Dell offers a touchscreen option on this netbook–which I now regret not opting for–which I’m promised works well in Ubuntu and offers an exciting new range of possibilities.

The only majorly annoying hardware feature on this netbook is a large white light on the back of the screen that flashes to indicate wifi activity.  Dell reportedly designed it this way to alert teachers when their students were online (the 2100 is targeted at the education market).

The light can be disabled, but doing so involves tearing open the case and voiding the warranty.  I’d be really happy to see Dell issue a BIOS update that would allow users to turn off the light without getting physical.

Ubuntu on the 2100

After some initial debate regarding whether I’d be better off with the lpia version, I installed the i386 build of Ubuntu 9.10 on the netbook and have stuck with it.  Installation went seamlessly and took less than a half-hour.

Over the approximately two weeks that I’ve been using it, Ubuntu 9.10 has performed very well on this hardware.  The wireless is flawless and gets great range, and desktop effects are extremely smooth and snappy.

Sounds works well.  The speaker quality is not awesome, but I assume that’s the fault of the hardware, not Ubuntu, and I wasn’t expecting professional quality in an inexpensive netbook.

The one software issue I’ve come up against is the webcam.  It was detected by Ubuntu out-of-the-box, but when I installed Cheese for taking pictures and video, I found I could only record the latter if I reduced the camera resolution to around 320×240 pixels, instead of the maximum 1280×1024.

This is the first webcam I’ve ever owned, so I don’t know whether having to record video at a low resolution is normal, or whether it’s the fault of Ubuntu or Cheese.  But 320×240 resolution is not the end of the world, and I’m happy with it until I get some time to look into this further.

Some conclusions

In terms of overall performance, I am intensely happy with Ubuntu on this machine.  I was worried about the Atom CPUs being sluggish, but I’ve had no problems whatsoever.  Having 2 gigabytes of memory probably helps, but this netbook can even run Windows XP in VirtualBox without flinching.  That’s a lot more than I can say for the circa-2004 Pentium IV Inspiron laptop that my Latitude is replacing.

If it weren’t for the small disk capacity (Dell offers much larger ones if you don’t opt for the SSD variety) on the netbook, I’d consider ditching my two-year-old Core 2 Duo/2 gigabyte RAM desktop and turn this machine into my main computer.  Based on my experience so far, I don’t think the performance would be that much different at all, and it would save a lot of space on my desk.

To sum up, the Latitude 2100 is a great piece of hardware with near-flawless Ubuntu support.  If only I could disable the wifi light so I don’t look extra foolish during my next research trip to the French military archives, I’d be well pleased indeed.

Tags: Cloud Service Providers Digital Service Providers MSPs VARs/SIs Channel Programs Mobility Open Source

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19 comments

  1. Avatar Jon January 8, 2010 @ 3:25 am
    Reply

    Thanks for the review. Does this model have a built-in mic? I can’t find a reference on any of Dell’s pages. Also, how’s the battery life with the 6-cell?

  2. Avatar Jack January 8, 2010 @ 9:53 am
    Reply

    I can testify that the touch screen works well with the 2100. I tested it using the live Ubuntu Netbook Edition and was blown away by that. So was the lead in our Tech Sales team.

  3. Avatar Viggo January 8, 2010 @ 10:28 am
    Reply

    Are the COdecs Built in? or can I purchase them in the Ubunto online store?

  4. Avatar Laptop Repair Guy January 8, 2010 @ 12:31 pm
    Reply

    You mentioned the camera resolution. I’ve seen a lot of confusion on resolution specs on many models. Dell is –often– not very clear in sales or support documents.

    I think that model is capable of 640×480 for video.

  5. Avatar Christopher Tozzi January 8, 2010 @ 1:54 pm
    Reply

    Jon: yes, there’s a built-in microphone and it works well in Ubuntu. As for the battery, I did a test where I let the system sit idle for an hour. I lost 14% charge in that time, so that seems pretty good.

    Viggo: unfortunately I can’t speak about codecs because I wiped out Dell’s original operating system and replaced it with generic Ubuntu. But you can buy codecs in the Ubuntu store, or download them from the repositories if you’re not in the United States/don’t care.

  6. Avatar hsp January 8, 2010 @ 3:21 pm
    Reply

    Can’t you just employ the Car Talk method of dealing with unruly lights by putting duct tape over it? Or perhaps a big “Ubuntu” sticker.

    Glad to hear that you are intensely happy with your netbook. I’d love to get into the market if they made a good netbook tablet. Perhaps in the next couple of years.

  7. Avatar Links 8/1/2010: KDE Software Compilation 4.4 RC1 | Boycott N January 9, 2010 @ 1:06 am
    Reply

    […] Review: Ubuntu on the Latitude 2100 Netbook In terms of overall performance, I am intensely happy with Ubuntu on this machine. I was worried about the Atom CPUs being sluggish, but I’ve had no problems whatsoever. Having 2 gigabytes of memory probably helps, but this netbook can even run Windows XP in VirtualBox without flinching. That’s a lot more than I can say for the circa-2004 Pentium IV Inspiron laptop that my Latitude is replacing. […]

  8. Avatar Ollie January 10, 2010 @ 3:53 pm
    Reply

    Nice article! But i have one more question about the 2100: Do standby and hybernate modes work as expected? I found both not working flawlessly on my Samsung NC10, that’s why i still stick with XP there. But i am really looking for a Netbook that’s capable of suspending and hybernation on Ubuntu. Should be no big deal in the 21st century, shouldn’t it? 🙂

  9. Avatar Christopher Tozzi January 10, 2010 @ 5:39 pm
    Reply

    Ollie: suspend and resume from suspend work fine and are very snappy. My laptop won’t hibernate, however–when I tell it to, nothing happens–but that’s probably because my swap partition is smaller than my RAM size (since I only have a 16 gigabyte SSD, I didn’t want to waste too much of it on swap, especially since with 2 gigabytes of memory, the operating system shouldn’t need to resort to swap very often. I only have 1 gigabyte swap).

  10. Avatar NutMotion January 10, 2010 @ 8:39 pm
    Reply

    Glad to see another Dell Ubuntu laptop which works well.

    Mine is little more than 1 year now: Dell Inspiron 1525, shipped with Ubuntu 8.04. Works nearly flawlessly, except one minor bug for which Dell gives the fix on it’s blog.

    So Dell is doing a good favor to Linux by shipping Ubuntu laptops.

    Only “complaint”: Ubuntu version is “only” 50$ less than the XP version (http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-latitude-2100?c=usamp;l=enamp;s=bsdamp;cs=04).

    What’s more, the default HDD differs between the two offers.

    if you customize the Ubuntu version with the same HDD as the Windows one,it adds 20$. Which lowers the discount to 30$.

    But hey. One must begin somewhere right:D

  11. Avatar Viggo January 11, 2010 @ 3:00 pm
    Reply

    Christopher Tozzi : Thanxs for your answer!!!

  12. Avatar Ubuntu-News #8211; Your one stop for news about Ubuntu raquo January 11, 2010 @ 3:08 pm
    Reply

    […] #174Call for votes: Ubuntu Developer Membership Board electionAn Interview With Paultag WorksWithUReview: Ubuntu on the Latitude 2100 NetbookBenchmarking Ubuntu’s lpia BuildBuying a Dell Ubuntu Netbook UbuntuGeekUbuntu Tweak 0.5.0 […]

  13. Avatar Pieter January 12, 2010 @ 3:40 am
    Reply

    What is your boot time with the ssd disk ?

  14. Avatar Simplicius January 12, 2010 @ 9:53 am
    Reply

    @Pieter

    I have a first gen Acer Aspire One. I got rid of Linpus and installed Ubuntu. It has a 16GB SSD and 1GB RAM. After disabling/uninstalling a bunch of stuff I can boot in about 13 seconds and only use 90MB of RAM. With standard Ubuntu, i.e. without tweaking it a bit, you are looking at slightly slower boot time and much higher use of RAM.

    Anyway, boot time is much better than my other two computers with much more capable CPUs and hard drives instead of SSD.

  15. Avatar Christopher Tozzi January 12, 2010 @ 1:40 pm
    Reply

    Pieter: my experience on the Dell netbook is similar to Simplicius’s on his Acer netbook. My boot is about about 18-20 seconds with Ubuntu 9.10. I haven’t done any tweaking to try to make it faster. I do suspect that the impressive overall performance on this machine has a lot to do with the SSD, which seems to make up for the limitations of the Atom CPU in many cases.

  16. Avatar Johnathan Haught March 3, 2010 @ 3:19 am
    Reply

    To disable Dell Latitude 2100 Network LED edit your /etc/rc.local

    Under Ubuntu do something like:

    sudo nano /etc/rc.local

    Type this:

    iwpriv eth1 set_leddc 0

    at bottom of file, make sure its above the exit 0

    CTRL+X saves the change

    Now the LED should be disabled every bootup

    If iwpriv eth1 set_leddc 0 doesnt work try:

    iwpriv eth1 set_leddc 1

    You may have to type sudo before iwpriv, Im typing this on the fly without testing on Ubuntu. However,
    iwpriv eth1 set_leddc 0 works like a charm on my Dell 2100 with PC-BSD 8.0 installed. So should work for Linux users as well. Let me know how it goes. I have a friend who’s been envying my 2100 who is a Ubuntu fan.

    Regards,

    Johnathan

  17. Avatar elprimo March 10, 2010 @ 12:15 am
    Reply

    In tryin to disable the LED on my Latitude 2100 running Ubuntu 9.04 I tried Jonathan’s trick of adding

    iwpriv eth1 set_leddc 0

    into /etc/rc.local (of course about exit 0)

    also tried replacing the 0 with a 1
    and no change with the bright LED night light.
    not even adding sudo in front of the line worked.

    anyone else succeeded with this?

  18. Avatar Gregory May 3, 2010 @ 9:48 pm
    Reply

    Christopher, I was wondering about the Latitude 2100’s temperature, particularly during different tasks? My experience with smaller-sized Dells is that they tend to get hot.

  19. Avatar Christopher Tozzi May 3, 2010 @ 9:59 pm
    Reply

    Gregory: I haven’t had any issues with it getting too hot. It runs much cooler than the larger (and much older) Inspiron that it replaced. It does get warm if I do CPU-intensive things (mostly, playing flash videos) for extended periods, but never hot enough to cause it to auto-shutdown or to burn my lap. The SSD might help reduce the temperature, but I can’t imagine it being an issue even with a normal disk. The way the battery is designed forces there always to be space between the bottom of the computer and the surface on which it’s resting, which presumably also helps keep it cool.

    As a bonus, the low temperature means it’s also quiet, since the fans rarely need to kick into full speed.

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