So, just what can you do with this ASUS Eee Linux PC thing anyway?

ITWire ^ | Monday, 31 December 2007 | David M Williams

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

ASUS have released a cheap subnotebook. It is far from state-of-the-art tech-wise, with 512Mb RAM and a Celeron processor. It has a 4Gb hard drive and no optical drive. Its screen is 7” and runs at the odd resolution of 800x480 and the operating system looks like something Fisher Price might have designed. Why would you buy it? What on earth can you do with this?

The answer is lots. Sure, the things I said above are true. But don’t be deceived by a small glimpse at its hardware specs – there’s so much more which can be said. I’m definitely a fan, and the Eee PC’s sales figures suggest I’m not unique.

For starters, the battery life is three hours, the charger is as tiny as a mobile phone charger – not a typical bulky laptop brick – and it weighs less than a kilogram. It’s absolutely ultraportable. Perhaps it may not suit you as your primary workhorse but there’s no denying that the Eee is king of mobility. It is effortless to carry and comes with a reasonably stylish carry case although other options can be found.

The hard drive is 4Gb and you definitely won’t want to use it to store your entire iTunes collection but it’s a solid-state hard drive which is a definite plus. There are no moving parts and it is dead fast to boot up and to shut down. Power on the Eee and quite literally within seconds you’re away. The solid state hard drive consumes less power and generates less heat than a traditional IDE or SATA spinning platter based hard drive.

[djf]

I have to admit, out of all (not many, really) distros I’ve tried, I like Knoppix the best.

Wish there was an easy way to install it, or at least another distro that was comparable.

(and nobody need mention Ubuntu. If an OS can’t even run a mouse, I don’t want to fight it!).

[antiRepublicrat]

Isn’t that what mobile devices are basically good for?

Not the Dell laptop I used to use. Huge, heavy, clunky, noisy, short battery life. It could better be described as an all-in-one desktop that can be lugged from desk to conference room without having to turn the power off. Other people run their lives off their laptops and they need good portability, but with a lot more power and capacity than this thing.

But within its market this looks pretty nice.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I’ve had trouble with Knoppix...but I am not really any good with commands....Sidux looks interesting...I think the developers come from the Knoppix area....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Here is another Mobile device...( which seem to be coming at us very rapidly ):

Amazon to debut Kindle e-book reader Monday
November 15, 2007, 2:21 PM PST

And some Commentary :

Will e-books ever be a best seller?
November 19, 2007, 4:00 AM PST

[dennisw]

LOL
LOL at Microsoft panic

[kingu]

Actually, I have a stand alone CD I pop into computers sometimes that has a graphics suite, word processing, audio processing, video processing, about sixty games, a massive dictionary, firefox, an email suite with support for linking to my PDA.. About a third of the CD is actually just drivers.

Linux has a very small footprint compared to Windows. Ubuntu is a bit of a hog compared to a lot of distributions, but I used PuppyLinux, with it’s .078gb footprint as one of the best wireless Tivo players I ever had.

2gb is large enough to handle all the word processing you’ll likely ever write, your web surfing, some games, and if you find that limit kind of restrictive, toss in a $29 4gb SD card, or hook up a $50 120 gb external drive.

The thing that’s so attractive to me is that for $300 I’ve a laptop that can play video, play music, get online with, and a battery that lasts almost twice as long as most premium laptops. It’s size is smaller than a thin hard back novel.

What I’d love to see is a hybrid of the Eee PC and the OLPC, as I love the swivel screen on the OLPC and the game buttons - probably the best portable e-reader outside of the Kindle.

[martin_fierro]

(and nobody need mention Ubuntu. If an OS can’t even run a mouse, I don’t want to fight it!).

Recently had a good experience with Gutsy Gibbon (v. 7.10 -- unlike the 7.05 Fierce Fawn, below): it automatically detected both a ZyAIR G-220 USB-based 802.11g adapter + a Logitech wireless mouse.

[Big Giant Head]

I messed with Knoppix and like it, Ubuntu, like it but had difficulties....

PClinuxOS is what I’m using right now. It’s detected everyting, runs well, and boots in half the time of WindowsXP.
My son’e laptop was crashing several times per day until we put PCLOS on it, and it’s been rock solid since. That inspired me to dual boot mine.