Last night I ordered an Asus m3n. It was a bit of an impulse buy, that day I lost an assignment on my school's computers, costing me 2% of my final mark right off the top. It's notebook time.
The m3n was the cheapest centrino i found, and it was already 200$C more than what I wanted to pay. The battery life will be worth it. Today, while surfing on the school network and swearing at the crashes (how do they get linux to crash so often? It boggles the mind) I decided to check out more carefully my purchase.
Saw the little "optional" tag next to the Optical column. I had noticed that before, but didn't really think it through. I thought "that's allright, with my wireless network and thumbdrive, it'll be no problem."
Saw the little "none" tag next to the bundled software column. I thought "that's ok, my GF has a spare copy of XP since she dropped a glass of water on her notebook."
Today, while surfing on the school network and swearing at the crashes (how do they get linux to crash so often? It boggles the mind) I decided to check out more carefully my purchase. I put the above two things together: If I can't get on the network without windows, and I can't get files onto the computer without the network, am I screwed?"
In my Googles, I've found mention of two possible solutions.
1. Boot to USB. My buddy has an external CD ROM, will this work with just the BIOS Drivers? Will the ASUS Bios likely have a Boot to USB option?
2. Boot to network. Will the ASUS Bios have this option? How the heck do you do this anyway?
Please help. I really don't want to pay more money for an optical drive, and I also don't want to add the weight to the machine either.
The m3n was the cheapest centrino i found, and it was already 200$C more than what I wanted to pay. The battery life will be worth it. Today, while surfing on the school network and swearing at the crashes (how do they get linux to crash so often? It boggles the mind) I decided to check out more carefully my purchase.
Saw the little "optional" tag next to the Optical column. I had noticed that before, but didn't really think it through. I thought "that's allright, with my wireless network and thumbdrive, it'll be no problem."
Saw the little "none" tag next to the bundled software column. I thought "that's ok, my GF has a spare copy of XP since she dropped a glass of water on her notebook."
Today, while surfing on the school network and swearing at the crashes (how do they get linux to crash so often? It boggles the mind) I decided to check out more carefully my purchase. I put the above two things together: If I can't get on the network without windows, and I can't get files onto the computer without the network, am I screwed?"
In my Googles, I've found mention of two possible solutions.
1. Boot to USB. My buddy has an external CD ROM, will this work with just the BIOS Drivers? Will the ASUS Bios likely have a Boot to USB option?
2. Boot to network. Will the ASUS Bios have this option? How the heck do you do this anyway?
Please help. I really don't want to pay more money for an optical drive, and I also don't want to add the weight to the machine either.
