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Ubuntu Eee Goes Gold
bjcarne writes in to commend Jon Ramvi and his team, who have delivered their first stable release of Ubuntu Eee, an Ubuntu version customized for the Asus Eee PC. "In December Ubuntu Eee started as a one man project, but [over] the last months several people have joined in on the development. We're trying to achieve something which [hasn't] been successful for any other Linux distribution yet: a OS targeting a single computer which includes the best applications available. This means people can buy this really cheap computer and easily get a great OS on it for free. Ubuntu Eee is just for the Asus Eee. Ubuntu Eee is smaller, faster and we're bringing people the cutting edge of technology (while being stable and free of course)."
The default Xandros is kind of, shall we say, odd. It is mostly Debian, and usually plays along with recent Debian or *buntu packages; but Xandros is comparatively proprietary and by adding repos you take your chances.
That said, I've got one sitting on my desk, and the default Xandros isn't bad; but it is markedly less "normal" than I had expected it to be.
I wouldn't be surprised. Check out this video with compiz on an EEE. Granted, that is with Xubuntu (XFCE?) but I don't see why you couldn't run Gnome on an EEE. The EEE has 512 MB of RAM, a 900 MHz intel chip, and an intel mobile CPU. For comparisons sake, I have a full sized Acer 3680 with 512 MB of RAM, a 1.7 GHz processor, and an Intel GMA 950. It runs quite fast. Never noticed any kind of slowdowns.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
This is a new feature of the linux kernel, called Zealous Autoconfig. It is documented here.
In all seriousness, is there a chance that there is an access point, router, or gateway somewhere that has inadvertently been activated as a DHCP server? Can you bring another laptop in to see if it behaves the same way?
Technology tips and tricks.
I will say one thing: UnionFS is kind of neat, but as you add packages to the default EeePC you are using space. It is a bit of effort to remove the UnionFS and at that point it is tempting to try other distros.
Ubuntu is still basically just a snazzied up Debian. You can choose which WM to run just like you would anywhere else.
You've got to keep in mind, though, that the resolution of the screens are 800x480 for the 7 inchers and 1024x600 for the 9 inch model. At such a very low resolution it seems to run Compiz, GNOME, XFCE, and KDE without any major problems. There are plenty of videos on Youtube demonstrating as much.
I'll bet dollars to dimes you do have a rogue DHCP server up somewhere.
You should have a second machine sniff packets in promiscuous mode while your EEE attaches to the network to figure out what is going on.
Don't forget that you probably have twice the number of pixels on your desktop that you do on your Eee.
I think the eeepc has wear leveling built into the hardware (like SD cards and usb drives, and most consumer flash devices). So it should be able to happily run ext3 or any filesystem you want.
As for KDE, well you could just apt-get install it...
"I think it would be a good idea" Gandhi, on Western Civilisation
Ubuntu on my HP laptop bogs down too much when running indexing programs. It is naturally a very heavy distribution, so I am sceptical about the eee specific build.
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Well, the XO-1 is already capable of running Ubuntu with a GNOME desktop.
Next up, you could load it up with, say, Ubuntu Netbook Remix (I'm guessing that would be a bit choppy as the XO-1 doesn't have OpenGL acceleration), or Ubuntu Mobile Edition, and you have a nice mini interface that's perfect for its small screen.
Have you updated/upgraded the system after adding the extra repos? I'm thinking about Ubuntu for my eee because the Asus and Xandros updates are some of the worst I've seen in a while. Simple UI icons go missing (backup simpleui.rc and copy it back), the network panel stops working, (still haven't found the cause of that, appears to be a KDE update) other stuff breaks. I hit F9, rolled it back and haven't updated it since. A good repository and decent updates from ASUS would make this thing perfect.
As a long-time Xandros user who moved to Kubuntu, I have a good idea of what the trade-offs are:
1) Ubuntu will have much more software, and it will be much newer. With Xandros, you may find yourself looking for 'backports' and other specially-packaged versions of software that is otherwise commonly available under Debian and Ubuntu.
2) Xandros' integration with Samba really works, whereas the K/Ubuntu integration has never worked for me. I later learned that NFS is far better/easier for sharing so this became irrelevant.
3) Ubuntu has more drivers owing to the newer kernel and other packages, but the hardware that Xandros does support tends to get configured somewhat better. Advantage here goes to Ubuntu because now that the distro is tailored for the Eee PC in particular: USB add-ons will be better suported than with the pre-installed OS.
4) Xandros updates the OS extremely infrequently. You could wait a year or more for ANY security updates to come through.
5) Xandros' File Manager app is very nice but got increasingly flaky and slow over the years.
6) Xandros Inc. said they were switching their focus to servers a couple years ago.
The final straw for me which insured I'll never go back to Xandros is that they signed a Novell-like dreaded deal with Microsoft. Xandros thinks that by using Linux (not just their distro) you are using Microsoft's 'intellectual property'. Worse still, when GPL3 came out it was specifically worded to grandfather-in only the Novell deal, sticking it to the little "me-too" distros that sold out (i.e. Xandros and one or two others): Xandros will be on increasingly shaky licensing ground as the years progress.
Personally I would avoid lining the pockets of a company like Xandros or Novell by purchasing their systems either bundled or directly.
It is called zeroconf (apple calls it bonjour, used to call it rendezvous).
Basically it is able to negotiate ip address local to the lan segment (mdns), resolve hostnames and lookup up local services (dns-sd).
The service responsible for this is called Avahi.
There are some Debian EeePC problems, but it's quite ok.
I wrote a review of it yesterday: here. It has quite a few problems, it's a fun and nice machine, but it doesn't live up to the hype.
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Gnome is modified. Check out MArk Shuttleworth's blog for some screenshots. They made the window title appear in the top bar for instance, so they understand the spacing issue and are trying to maximize it.