OESF Portables Forum

Everything Else => Model Specific Forums => Distros, Development, and Model Specific Forums => Archived Forums => Asus Eee PC => Topic started by: ZDevil on March 01, 2008, 06:32:17 am

Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: ZDevil on March 01, 2008, 06:32:17 am
I suppose the very first topic here is asking how many forum members have an Eee PC.

I am currently using a black 701 running eeeXubuntu r3 (Gutsy 7.10) as my main gadget.
Despite the apparently a bit dated hardware specs, I am very satisfied with its performaces, thanks to the fast SSD.
The keyboard is just enough for touchtyping. And I have no big problems working with the 7" screen (e.g. with Swiftfox fullscreen addons).
Compiz Fusion runs very smoothly and surprisingly takes very little overhead (10MB or so of RAM, i guess).
Recently I've bought the PCI BT-MicroEDR2 USB (http://www.planex.net/product/bluetooth/bt-microedr2.htm), the smallest bluetooth USB dongle available (Brando seems to be selling a similar product, but I am not veyr sure). I will use the USB port for the time being, until I am comfortable enough/i can find someone to add an extra USB usb inside the machine and attach the dongle to it.

Really looking forward to the first release of Debian/EeePC (http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC). It's actually working mostly OOTB now, but I still want to wait for the few fixes before I migrate to that. Then I can have both my C3200 and my 701 run the same full-fledged distro.  
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: dougeeebear on March 01, 2008, 08:15:42 am
I'm a happy EEE PC owner.
I've practically replaced my big laptop with it, and my Z is starting to get a little lonesome.
The E is a sweet little machine.
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: tux on March 01, 2008, 04:23:43 pm
 

I have a Black 701 dual booting Xandros (on the SSD) with eeeXubuntu r3 on a 16GB SDHC card. I have been able to get my Hauppage Nova-T digital tv stick to work on the Ubuntu side and my Archos PMA430 works nicely as a portable hard disk. I find the touch pad irritating, I do on all my laptops!!, so I carry a logitech trackball in the bag I use to carry the eeepc. I have found a lot of my Z accessories are quite useful with the eeepc.

The EEEuser.com site is very useful but there are a very large number of duplicate newbie posts, some of which are unbelievably naive! The wiki and the forum search are definitely the way to go there!  

I seem to spend most time with the eeeXubuntu side of things and I have converted my other laptops to Xubuntu. I am thinking that the eeeXubuntu system might be better replaced by the Ubuntu or Xubuntu install with the tweaks for wifi etc which are documented on the EEEuser.com forums and  wiki. Why? Well it appears that the eeeXubuntu originator has gone walkabout!

I have upgraded the ram to 1GB. free and top seem to show very little use of swap. I may get brave and think about some internal mods. The one that would be most tempting is the internal usb port. I could then put a large pendrive in and boot some variety of Ubuntu from that. This would free the external SD slot.

I have put a variant of dos on a pendrive and can boot into it. I'm considering putting UCSD pascal on that: just because I can!!

Cheers

 
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: jpmatrix on March 02, 2008, 04:01:33 am
Quote from: dougeeebear
The E is a sweet little machine.

so, after the Z, you got the E ... right ?  
i'm waiting for the F ....  
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: Snappy on March 02, 2008, 06:32:00 am
I got the eeepc as well.  So far so good.  
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: AmigaFalcon on March 02, 2008, 06:54:42 am
I'm waiting for ASUS to add an internal 20+GB HD and slightly higher res screen.

2GB internal storage on a laptop does not make sense to me, but it is just a matter of time before ASUS reel out the "enhanced versions" of the EEE PC. So just have to wait a little longer
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: Tom61 on March 02, 2008, 09:14:00 pm
I have a white 4G 701 with an 8GB SDHC card that I got around Christmas. Xandros that has had a fair bit done to it (Advanced mode, apt pinning of multiple repositories, etc.) on SSD, Ubuntu (standard w/scripts to get most everything going on the EEE) on SDHC. I've upgraded to 1GB of RAM, because it was cheap, and I'd like to get XP running in VMWare Player or QEMU. Strongly considering getting a 16GB card, as they've dropped to the price of 8GB when I bought it already.

When I have to use for more than a few hours, the 7" 800x480 screen gets on my nerves. Even in short brusts it can be hard to deal with multi-megapixel images on the screen(view 1:1, edit, etc.). I've been doing that more lately, as I've been taking a photography course. Even just cropping gets rather interesting on this small screen.

I miss the 1024x600 8.9" display on my Fujistu Lifebook P1120. Since it turns out that the display in the EEE is LVDS, and doesn't just scramble when a larger res. display is added, it should be possible to to retrofit the Lifebook's screen in. It'll have to be after school is over though, as the EEE is too handy to risk right now. Though, the EEE's screen is brighter and has a better viewing angle.

The screen it comes with is plenty serviceable for quick web browsing, and that's what I do most when away from my desktop.

The limited space isn't as big of an issue as I thought it would be. Considering I have over 30GB of recorded video from PMP alone, in addition to multiple GB of downloaded videos(mostly legit stuff like Systm), and that my 1GB card in my PDA always had to have files shuffled around to fit videos, I'm stunned that 8GB is sufficient. I figured I'd feel the need to lug around my 2.5" 60GB external HD a fair bit.  I can fit a few videos on the SDHC's home directory, but I don't tend to bring too many along, and most of those were downloaded by the EEE to watch. Near ubiquitous WiFi I guess has supplanted/supplemented my need for video files.

I'm loving the speedy bootup of the default Xandros. Less than 45 seconds from cold boot to browsing the internet. My Nokia 770, which was bought as a toy and for quick nighttime browsing, has been completely surplanted by the EEE. Web browsing was such a pain on the 770, but the instant on and quick connection to WiFi made it a bed side companion before I got the EEE.
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: henrysviper on March 03, 2008, 06:38:04 am
Quote from: AmigaFalcon
I'm waiting for ASUS to add an internal 20+GB HD and slightly higher res screen.

2GB internal storage on a laptop does not make sense to me, but it is just a matter of time before ASUS reel out the "enhanced versions" of the EEE PC. So just have to wait a little longer

I have already lost a laptop hard disk due to a bumpy train ride in Greece. Putting normal hard disks on computers that are supposed to be fully mobile is not a good idea. That is the reason older laptops had shock mounted hard drives (and the reason some laptops like the macbook have sudden motion sensors to park the hard drive heads).
Asus made the right choice on this one (well, maybe they could offer a choice but that would drive costs upwards).

Besides, the eeepc is not exactly a laptop. The role of an ultraportable is not to replace your main computer.
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: Tom61 on March 04, 2008, 02:51:18 pm
Quote from: AmigaFalcon
I'm waiting for ASUS to add an internal 20+GB HD and slightly higher res screen.

2GB internal storage on a laptop does not make sense to me, but it is just a matter of time before ASUS reel out the "enhanced versions" of the EEE PC. So just have to wait a little longer

You could always get an 8G model and add in a 16GB SDHC (~$70 now) to get 20GB of free space.

Of course, with the new models announced, I'm guessing you're going to continue to wait.
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: harvell on March 06, 2008, 10:56:28 pm
I'm a proud EeePc owner... well actually my wife is but I'm about to get myself a black one since I keep stealing it from her.  
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: speculatrix on March 07, 2008, 03:34:38 am
Quote from: harvell
I'm a proud EeePc owner... well actually my wife is but I'm about to get myself a black one since I keep stealing it from her.  

get the big screen variant, you need to make sure you have better gadgets than your wife!!!
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: ZDevil on March 07, 2008, 04:40:16 am
Quote from: speculatrix
Quote from: harvell
I'm a proud EeePc owner... well actually my wife is but I'm about to get myself a black one since I keep stealing it from her.  
get the big screen variant, you need to make sure you have better gadgets than your wife!!!
Yes... how true... and *because* my wife also seems to like my black 701 pretty much ... i have a perfect reason to get another one with a bigger screen  
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: jfv on April 06, 2008, 04:48:58 pm
I got a 2G last week and took it on a trip and it works fine. So far, I've kept the default distro and added the extra repos as per the wiki. Installed some software without problems. I might try other distros on an SD card later.

I was afraid it might not work so well and took the Zaurus along, but I didn't need to worry and the Zaurus might be retired from active duty.
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: ArchiMark on April 06, 2008, 09:13:36 pm
Quote from: harvell
I'm a proud EeePc owner... well actually my wife is but I'm about to get myself a black one since I keep stealing it from her.  


Well, I had one too...until I sold it to harvell......

 


So, at this point I'm like jpmatrix, waitin' for the 'fff'n PC.....

 
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: scottlfa on September 13, 2008, 11:52:41 pm
Bought an E a few days back, Lowest model [2G Surf]
Got it running Ubuntu 8.04 [Everything Works so far, including hot keys and such]

I have found it too be a reasonable mini laptop, not even close to my UX [I know theres a big price difference].  I carry it with me when I go places I would worry about the UX, I know it sounds cruel but I am not nearly so worried about it, its reltively easy to replace.

Specs aren't bad, screens usable [midori renders real well], keyboard is good but not as solid feeling as I had hoped.  Mouse is well a touchpad ... seems the nub mouse is becoming very scarce.  Wifi is as expected as are the other features.  Anyhows.

Tried eeeXubuntu on it, didn't like the lack of scaled x app windows [like 8.04 ubuntu],  dumped xandros right off [never much liked it] and tried a few other Os options.  MacOS did load installer wise, but I need a better flash drive in it before attempting again [internal mod to come].  Wont bother with windows, the UX has it and its all good.  Everything works now in U8.04 including hotkeys and full cpu speed so I am happy.  Went with beryl over compiz due to compatibility reasons, its all pretty now.
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: Cresho on September 14, 2008, 03:43:24 am
I set ubuntu hardy heron on my friends eee.  It is very nice.  I am planning on getting one sooner or later.
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: ppyo on May 09, 2009, 11:25:54 pm
I have a 4G surf, running Eeebuntu NBR 2.0, and it's a great little machine. Now it did not replace my Zaurus C1000, yet it has its own function in my computing needs. I am planning to replace the 4G with a 1000HA (10" screen, 1GB RAM, 160 GB HDD, Win XP [yuck, will install Ubuntu NBR on it])

Update:

Sold the EeePC 4G Surf. Got the EeePC 1000HA, and the 10 inch screen is great! Installed Ubuntu 9.04 on it, dual boot with Windoze (need it for some work related stuff)
Title: Any Eee Pc Owners Here?
Post by: 550 on May 11, 2009, 01:16:10 pm
I've got a black 20g 900 running Xandros on the ssd, and backtrack on the sdhc. Great machine, and it fits in my coat pocket.