Ronnie Tucker

Imagine a laptop that is only just larger than a DVD case, twice as thick, runs Linux and would cost just over £200. Fantasy? Not at all, it’s called the Asus Eee 701 PC.

The first thing I noticed about the machine is that it is completely silent but one of the things many people notice first is the small screen. I’m no Einstein but if the screen was larger then the entire unit would be larger and the whole point of the Eee is to be small! Another thing people have been pointing out is the small keyboard. If you have big hands then it may well be a problem but I am typing this article on the Eee without difficulty (see below).

When you first boot the Eee you are presented with a heavily modified version of Xandros which, while excellent for the new user, makes the Eee look too much like a childs toy. Fortunately many geeks make light work and ways have been found to replace Xandros with other Linux distributions.

I tried Ubuntu, I tried Kubuntu, I even tried Puppy Linux. But they all had one problem or another. Ubuntu seemed to think the battery was broken and neither wired nor wireless would work. Kubuntu liked the battery but again no network or wireless. A few scripts were released which would effectively patch Ubuntu to get most things working but by that time I had discovered the excellent community at www.eeeuser.com who had created eeeXubuntu (below) which was, as you can imagine, a modified Xubuntu install but with patches applied on install. But not everything went as planned.

Following the instructions on the eeeXubuntu page on the eeeusers.com wiki I created a bootable USB stick which contained the eeeXubuntu Live CD. The install went ahead as normal, I made sure to choose “Manual” when the installer reached the partitioning section since we do not want a swap partition on the Eee, the less writes to the solid state drive the better, now one problem with the installer is that some of the windows are too tall for the small screen. But the trick is to hold down the Alt key while left clicking anywhere on window, this lets you move the window round and, if need be, out of the screen, so now I could continue and finish off the install.

From cold boot to log in screen was approximately thirty seconds, slower than the default Xandros install, but worth it in my opinion. Log in to desktop is almost instant. I was then greeted with the message that my battery was possibly broken. Having used, and charged, the Eee several times since, the battery meter seems to work fine, I’ve no idea why it displays the error message but it seems to be a false alarm.

After booting I popped in a USB stick only to be greeted with a message saying that eeeXubuntu cannot mount the USB drive. After a bit of quick research, it turns out that the eeeXubuntu installer still adds a CD entry to the /etc/fstab file. After commenting out the CD line it accepted the USB stick no problem.

Next port of call was the wireless, this was a big problem with almost all Linux distro’s on the Eee, even Ubunu needs a patch. I’m a Kubuntu user by day so using Xubuntu is a bit alien to me, but after left clicking on the networking icon in the taskbar my wireless was detected, gave it my WEP code and I was off and running!

The next bone of contention with the Eee is sound. I played a WAV file and it was awful! Crackled like crazy. After some research on Ubuntu Forums I found a neat trick. Using the media player application in eeeXubuntu, turn the volume up s high as it will go. Next open a console and type:

alsamixer

In your console you will see some sliders. Move the first two sliders up and down (while playing some audio) until you have a decent volume. Now exit alsamixer. Now type:

sudo alsactl store 0

That will save your settings for next time. It wasn’t until later that I realised you can add a volume control panel to the taskbar, which is similar to the alsamixer so do try adding the volume control first, it may save you getting your hands dirty in the console. One final problem with eeeXubuntu seems to be the sound in games. I found that enabling the sound in some games caused the game to crash. Disbling the sound left the games fully playable.

One thing I have no real use for on the Eee is the built in webcam. But for the purposes of this review I did have to add a Feisty repository to obtain the ucview application which is what eeeXubuntu needs to start up the webcam. Easy to install bu not much use it seems since no matter whether you capture the screen yourself or by using the ucview application, you are still left with a blank image. This seems to be a known problem and one I’m sure the boffins will overcome.

The final thing to test was the function keys. To save having an extra dozen or so keys, some double up. So holding down the Fn key and tapping F3 will dull the screen, Fn + F4 will brighten the screen. These work perfectly well in eeeXubuntu.

The Eee comes with a recovery DVD which, ironically, requires Windows. But I managed to get the rescue disc working fine in WINE running on my desktop Kubuntu machine. The disc allows you to create a bootable USB stick with the default Xandros on it to let you return your Eee to factory default. Suffice to say: I won’t be needing the recovery disc. I’m keeping eeeXubuntu installed on my Eee as it has everything that I need fully working. I’m writing this in Abiword, editing my photos in GIMP and have Firefox, Thunderbird and Pidgin for my internet needs.

One of the big features of Linux is, of course, Compiz Fusion. Having noticed a few murmerings in the eeeusers forum I decided to give it a try, having read through a few posts, step one is to get aiglx working, this is done by:

sudo apt-get install libgl1-mesa-dri

Now restart X (Ctrl+Alt+Backspace) you now need to open the Synaptic Package Manager and install:

compiz-core
compiz-plugins
compiz-fusion-plugins-main
compiz-fusion-plugins-extra
compizconfig-settings-manager

If you prefer Emerald for your window borders then you can select it too in Synaptic. After clicking “Apply” you will have Compiz Fusion installed. But on such a low spec machine, is it even usable?

Absolutely! I can wobble my windows and spin my cube with the best of them!

The one pain with Compiz on the Eee is the Compiz Settings manager it is just too big for the screen and, since by default Compiz won’t nudge a window out the top of the screen, it doesn’t always work well with the Alt+Click+Drag trick which is a shame but snoop around in the Compiz Settings Manager until you find the Y-contraint option and turn it off. The vast majority of the effects work well and smoothly which is surprising for, as I said, such a low spec machine.

And yes, with the appropriate codecs it’ll even play all your audio and video files!

 

 

My current desktop (above)

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A short video of the EEE booting eeeXubuntu then running Compiz Fusion is at Google Video.

 

 

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Asus Eee PC Specifications:

 * CPU Type: 900MHz Intel Celeron Mobile
 * Installed RAM: 512MB DDR2
 * Hard Drive Capacity: 4GB S.S.D
 * Drive Type: Solid-State Disk
 * Screen Size: 7 inches
 * Operating System: Linux
 * Wireless Networking: Yes 802.11 b/g
 * Ethernet Controller: Yes
 * USB Ports: Yes, three USB2.0 ports
 * Battery Life: 3.5 Hours subject to usage
 * Approx Weight: 0.9 kg (196 lbs)
 * Dimensions (mm): 22.5×16.4×2.15-3.5CM
 * : Built in Webcam (0.3 Mega Pixel)
 * : Stereo Speakers
 * : SD Card Slot