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A couple of weeks back I bought an Asustek Eee PC 900 in order to obtain some seriously mobile networking and computing (see screenshots). I considered waiting for the 901 but really wanted to take the device on a trip down to Cornwall so took the plunge. I opted for the black model; no kitchenware here thank you ;-). It sports 20 GB of storage split across 4 and 16 GB solid state drives, 1GB of DDR II SDRAM, a 900MHz Celeron Mobile CPU and a 1024 x 600 resolution display on a 22.7cm (8.9″) diagonal TFT panel.

Ubuntu Hardy Heron running on my Asus Eee PC 900

Like many other Eee PC owners it seems, it didn’t take long (about 5 minutes) before I decided that the pre-installed version of Xandros had to go. Functionally, there’s nothing wrong with the default OS but it probably won’t appeal to those who are used to the standard GNOME, KDE or other more conventional Linux desktops. Eee PC’s Xandros eschews common Linux desktop configurations in favour of a simple tab-based application launcher style interface. It also presents you with licensing agreements which must be agreed to for both the customised operating system and at least one of the tools. Nevertheless, it possesses a capable set of applications that will take care of the essential tasks such as web browsing, email, word processing, Skype, music, basic photo and video editing, and more besides. It uses tried and trusted free software favourites such as OpenOffice, Firefox, and Thunderbird, together with some of the most popular KDE applications providing the rest of the core functionality and features. Importantly, the Eee’s version of Xandros has (naturally enough) been tailored specifically for the machine and everything works perfectly with the hardware. However, it doesn’t feel much like Linux, not least because neither a terminal window nor package manager is available by default.

If you want a “more kosher” Linux desktop, the full KDE-based Xandros desktop can be installed, but I decided to go for Ubuntu instead. I initially tried a version of Xubuntu 7.10, eeeXubuntu, customized for the original EEE 701, but the wi-fi packed up after I downloaded the first batch of updates and a couple of hours of diddling about with suggested solutions failed to restore it. I was concerned that a  GNOME installation might be a bit much for the Eee’s relatively limited hardware resources, but was attracted to the idea that the Eee would be running the same apps and tools as my desktop machine and so gave Ubuntu EEE a whirl, a customised version of Ubuntu 8.04.

The install went pretty well and most, if not all, of the Eee’s hardware worked without further tweaks. There were some issues such as the audio volume adjustment keys and the wireless adapter power switch failing to work (although the former can always be adjusted via the standard software controls and the latter can be switched on and off in the BIOS). In addition, shutting down Ubuntu from within a GNOME session fails to subsequently power off the hardware (requiring instead a five second push of the power button), whereas choosing the shutdown option from the login screen shuts the machine down correctly. There are a few other minor glitches as well, although workarounds and fixes, which I haven’t yet got around to trying, exist for many of these. (The fact that I haven’t got around to trying them yet indicates how relatively trivial the issues are.)

Multiple GNOME windows running on the Eee PC 900

Glitches notwithstanding, the core features worked fine. Ubuntu installed without fuss and the Wi-Fi worked out of the box. I was immediately able to connect to my WPA2 network and most of Ubuntu’s tools and standard functionality seem to be present and correct. My Wi-Fi connectivity survived the initial surge of updates. I needn’t have worried about performance, it’s perfectly acceptable thanks in part to the full gigabyte of DDR II RAM. The only performance irritation so far has been the boot time which is a rather agricultural 53 seconds. I didn’t record the Xandros start up times, but I think the boot up time was well under half the time that Ubuntu EEE is taking (there are scripts available that claim to reduce Ubuntu Eee’s start up time, I’ll try them out and report back). Not all of that start up time is taken booting Ubuntu, it takes around 6-7 seconds for the Eee’s BIOS splash screen to appear and the grub menu displays at around the 10 second mark.

I admit that I got a thrill when I first saw the Ubuntu logo together with the “circle of friends” on the black boot screen on such a small device. The ability to carry Linux around on a device weighing around a kilo, that is smaller than a typical computing book, is pretty cool. The key differences between Ubuntu EEE and the standard version of 8.04 seem to be driver installation scripts, smaller fonts, Evolution, GIMP and some other apps not installed by default, and the creators have tried to banish the brown and orange hues, replacing them with a conventional blue, Xubuntu-style desktop (based on the Clear Looks theme, I think). I wasn’t having any of that and restored the Human theme and Ubuntu’s default browns and oranges A blue background still appears momentarily somewhere between logging in and the session desktop appearing. I guess the Ubuntu EEE authors are in the “lose the brown!” camp.

This picture should give you a pretty good idea of the dimensions of the Eee PC 900

OK. I’m out of time this evening. I’ll probably create a Part II to this post in the next few days.

Screenshots

NB. The Eee PC’s screen pixels are physically smaller than those on most desktop LCD panels. For example, when viewed on standard 17″ and 20″ TFT panels the “original size” (1024×600) screenshots in my Flickr set will appear around 30% larger than the actual screen size on the EEE.