Posts Tagged notebook
EEE + Xubuntu = eeeXubuntu
After much tinkering with my Eee I’ve finally settled on an OS I like.
The Eee comes with a highly modified Xandros Linux which, on boot, makes your Eee look like a kindergarten toy. Not cool. But you can enable the IceWM menu (IceWM is the default window manager) but you can take it further by installing KDE on there too so you get a full KDE desktop with no big kiddie style icons on the screen. Cooler. Better still is the fact that you can install X/K/Ubuntu on there too! But the down side is that the wireless and wired networking don’t work and in some cases the battery meter is screwed. Not cool.
In comes eeeXubuntu (below). This is Xubuntu with patches applied to get your networking (wired and wireless) working! Hurrah! Not only that but all your other bits and bobs such as sound work fine! Cool!
Not only does eeeXubuntu work great on the Eee but you can pimp it to the max with Compiz Fusion! (below) Uber-cool!
So, the lesson is: Eee kicks ASS! 
And to prove the point, here’s a quick Google Video of my EEE booting eeeXubuntu then running Compiz Fusion.
ASUS EEE – FINALLY!
After much faffing around with Play.com I eventually went with Overclockers UK and got my ASUS EEE 701 Notebook.
I went with Play.com first because shipping was free but come the end of November my order went from Preorder to Accepted. Then within a day it went back to Preorder and dated 7th Dec! I can only assume the first batch wasn’t enough to cover all the pre-orders but a note/email to say so would have been nice! Anyway, looked about and found Overclockers UK had 10+ in stock so grabbed one, even though I was now paying for shipping. Booooo!
Now my only grief was with City-Link. Overclockers UK sent it Next Day courier on Monday. Well, come Tuesday City-Link must have knocked on the wrong door since they didn’t even leave a card and the only reason I know I didn’t get it was through their web site. Phoned them up and asked for a redelivery on Thursday. Fine. Not fine. Come Thursday afternoon I call up and ask about the status of my parcel. I’m told that there were some ‘problems in the warehouse’ and that my parcel wasn’t out on the road at all! Redelivery now Friday. *sigh* Come Friday afternoon no parcel and I’m now pissed off. Call them up and, again, it’s still in their problematic warehouse! Grr! So eventually I had to ask my dad to drive over ten miles to pick it up for me from City-Link. Swines! So needless to say I’ve written them a cheeky email letting them know what I think about their Next Week, sorry Next Day, ’service’.
Anyway… just tinkering with it out of the box (damn them for putting Frozen Bubble on it by default!) and will try and install Kubuntu on it later.
ASUS EEE PC 701
I’ve pre-ordered myself an Asus Eee 701 notebook. Pre-ordered as the first batch of Eee’s seem to be selling almost as fast as the Nintendo Wii!
(well, ok, maybe not THAT fast or elusive)
Obviously it’s not the most powerful notebook in the world but for £220 (UK) it’s a steal. Runs a version of Xandros (but not for long I can tell you that) has no hard drive but 4gb of sold state storage, 7inch screen, 512mb RAM, Wi-Fi, Wired Networking, three USB ports, card reader, webcam and it probably makes the tea too*.
I’m not sure which distro to put on there to be honest. I’m thinking Puppy is probably the best suited to it but will it have all the drivers necessary? I know Ubuntu sits nicely on there but it’s hardly the most light weight distro and I do prefer Kubuntu but then apparently Xubuntu has a lot of the features working ‘out of the box’ (unlike (K)Ubuntu)…
Needless to say: it’s very hackable!
* ok, I made up the bit about it being able to make tea
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