[alterom]

>Which windows program are you looking for, specifically?

All of them, specifically.

I don't want to think about which windows program can or can't run with Wine.

This includes:

* Microsoft software, from MSTeams to Windows itself

* Audio production software (DAWs and VST plug-ins)

* Games

* Device-specific software (like drivers/software for portable thermal printers)

* CAD (nTop, only supports Windows, for example, and don't tell me I don't need it; same for many Autodesk products. NX and Rhino don't have Linux support)

The last one is the most fun, as I'm a CAD developer who worked on nTop in particular.

[fragmede]

We'll have to see how the AI softwarepocalypse goes. If I only need 10% of the features of Photoshop, I really don't need to be spending money on the full software suite.

How's nTop Linux support coming along?

[Dylan16807]

I'm surprised you want to run real CAD software on a netbook. I think your use case is pretty unusual.

Also drivers are often better on Linux.

[alterom]

>I'm surprised you want to run real CAD software on a netbook. I think your use case is pretty unusual.

CAD has been around since before IBM PC came out. It's not necessarily a demanding piece of software.

Still, scratch CAD. My favorite VST synths are Windows-based.

And I don't want to lug around extra kilograms just to make some noise.

[Groxx]

tbh audio might be the hardest fit here - low-channel sound cards on low-end devices is pretty common, last I looked, and it tends to be CPU-heavy (and these tend to use very weak CPUs). you'd probably be fine rendering it out and checking the result (slow but afaik not usually memory heavy), but it may struggle with scrubbing around.

hard to say without actually trying it tho. and depends on the device, of course - mine was like $250 when new, it's a very different beast than a $1,000+ chromebook. the higher-end ones are much closer to normal laptops.

[alterom]

Let's say, digital audio production and digital synths running on commodity PCs was a thing since the 1980s.

I'm OK with having computational limitations that musicmakers had in 2000s. Heck, some of my favorite softsynths are from that time (Superwave P8, 4Front and other romplers, Dexed, etc).

The weak CPUs today handle them without a problem.

Hell, I've produced plenty of music on Intel Atom-powered Asus Eee1000 netbook back in what was it, 2008-2010, and I'm still using the very same software.

>low-channel sound cards

What do you even mean by this?

In any case, a USB audio adapter that solves all the audio issues costs $20 these days.

[Groxx]

tbh I suspect it would be just fine. even the really cheap ones tend to have at least a few gigabytes of RAM.

[dijit]

I think you missed the point of a netbook.

Aside from Microsoft Office, the rest is workstation stuff, and Microsoft Office is pushing "web first" (at least if their pricing is to be believed, the lowest O365 subscriptions do not offer access to the native apps).

[alterom]

>I think you missed the point of a netbook.

I think you missed the point of the question.

> the rest is workstation stuff

Yes, I want to be able to run workstation stuff on the small computer I carry everywhere, so that I don't have to carry my workstation everywhere.

[dijit]

get a workstation laptop then?

I feel like I’m taking crazy pills.

Your e-bike can’t tow a carriage either, that’s not strange.

[alterom]

You are taking crazy pills.

The netbook is a small and inexpensive machine that has enough specs to do the job.

And most computers today are beefed up enough to do the jobs I need them to do when I leave the house/office, even the cheapest ones.

Given the ability to run the software I use, my concerns are form factor, price, size, weight, ports, and battery life — in that order.

This little machine ticks all these boxes; very few others do.

Call it a "workstation laptop", and find me one in 10-11 inch size (with a screen that doesn't have 1 inch margins), has an amount of RAM that would be adequate 10 years ago (i.e. more than 4GB), has all the ports, and doesn't cost over $500 (so I won't have to care much when it invariably gets lost, stolen, dropped, etc).

[dijit]

netbooks could run a browser and an office suite… barely.

You’re asking for more than that based on the passage of time, but software got heavier faster than hardware kept up.