Dearest bought me an Eee PC to save my back and I have to admit this little machine is very good value. I have the 701, 4Gb Linux version, and it was a stea at $398. At 900+ grams it sure beats lugging around my Compaq (which is a great machine as well, just heavy).

I did find the Xandros operating system a little limiting, and the other desktop I have has Ubuntu on it, so I decided to go with the Ubuntu for the Eee PC instead. One of the key things was that the Asus installation of OpenOffice was an older version, and I needed v 2.4 for MS Office 2007 compatibility.

I Love My Eee PCThe picture shows what it looks like now:

This was not an easy thing to do, and it took me 3 tries to get it all as I like it, but here is what I did (all relevant to Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04, and get familiar with the command line - aka terminal):

  1. Ubuntu EeePC Community
    This is where I started for information and background reading
  2. To download, install the disk image to a USB stick and install on to your eee PC, the Get Ubuntu Eee wiki is the absolute BEST resource. You do need to teak a bit after this, however this is the best way to get it all going.
  3. Now the wifi doesn’t work straight off the bat with the reinstall, so ake sure you have an ethernet cable and access to the internet for the rest… Install the madwifi drivers (I found the command line instructions from this link the best - under ‘Enabling Wifi’). Wifi still didn’t work immediately - check the next step for that.
  4. Autoconfig the remaining tweaks - go here and use the RiceeeyTweak instructions for the command line. Wifi started working for me after I did this - and it did take a little while.
  5. I then followed these instructions to reduce swappiness - hopefully making the hard drive last a little longer. [Is swappiness even a word??]
  6. I then installed the Netbook Remix front end, coz I just like the way it looks.
  7. I have installed UCView for the webcam - I found the webcam worked no problem (but I didn’t try it until I had gotten to step 6)
  8. I freed some disk space by removing applications I didn’t think I’d need.
  9. I have then enabled processor scaling, to make it faster, manage processes and battery life better.
  10. I have installed Jungledisk on it - so I can take my files anywhere on any PC through the cloud. This was really easy to do with Jungle Disk 2 - the configurator is very easy to operate now.
  11. I then put a nice wallpaper on it to go with the front end.

Why did I choose Ubuntu?

For a few reasons - one was familiarity… I know the command line instructions on Ubuntu and looove apt-get. The Synaptic package manager drives me berko. Also becoz:

  • Up-to-date apps
  • I know it works with Jungledisk
  • Really cool front end (the Netbook Remix)
  • Connectivity - probably to do with the fact that I’m familiar with Ubuntu, but I just find it works with a lot of hardware that we have (printers, network drives, etc)
  • Automatically resizes to suit the monitor/projectors I plug it into without the need to open any special apps, etc

What I Might Do Moving Forward:

  • Install TiddlyWiki (for note taking)
  • Sync my iPod Shuffle

I Love My Eee PC!!