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)."

Comments

Ubuntu is bloated; what does Ubuntu EEE offerme?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am writing this in a hotel room, on an EeePc. I happen to like the interface and although I would not put Xandros on any computer, I am fairly happy with how it works. I did add the extra repositories and can switch to the regular desktop, I usually leave it in Easy mode.
So, what does the Ubuntu Eeepc offer me. I will have to try it in a VM and see. They will be hard pressed to improve on this already working system.

Choises are always good....

[Ecuador]

hoewever I have to say that I am more than impressed at what ASUS has done with Xandros on the Eee PC. Ok, it was set up for novice users so I had to switch to advanced mode, get devel packages from debian, but it has been an amazingly smooth experience and everything works exactly as it should (the sd, the usb, the wifi, the camera, the LAN...). So might give Ubuntu Eee a try, but I will definatelly be pleasantly surprised if it can be even better.

I might get moded off topic, but I do have a question for the default Xandros OS of the Eee PC that somebody might know to answer. At work, we have set up a linux gateway that has NO DHCP, so both linux and windows clients that we connect have to be setup with a static IP, plus the internal DNS and gateway IP. However, I just hooked on the Eee pc for the first time and it found the gateway and got an IP, PLUS it found the INTERNAL DNS and could access internal machines by name. How is that possible, it is exactly what DHCP is supposed to do, however we don't have DHCP.

Re:What manager?

[CastrTroy]

You're right. My laptop has a resolution of 1280x800. The 9 inch EEE has a resolution of 1024 x 600. That's 1024000 vs. 614400 pixels. Pretty close to half. It has even less than half if you go with the 7 inch, which only has 800x480 resolution, and 384000 pixels. There's no reason the EEE shouldn't be able to handle a full Linux distro. The only thing holding it back, is the size of the SSD.

Two questions

[ParaShoot]

I've been thinking of installing Ubuntu on my Eee for a while but I wanted the distro to get to a stable state before installing. Now it has, I have two questions (which I hope /. will be able to answer):
1. What's the SSD wear like? I believe the default Xandros has some clever wear levelling stuff installed. Has this been ported to the Ubuntu edition?
2. I don't like Gnome. Is there going to be a KUbuntu Eee edition?

Re:What manager?

[Anonymous Coward]

my eee is running standard ubuntu with gnome and its fine. i tried xubuntu but the difference between gnome and xfce is a worlds apart for me. I'd rather take a very slight unnoticable hit with gnome than use xfce on a daily basis.

Ubuntu EEE/Notebook Remix on a desktop?

[Falstius]

I have a desktop with a 15" 1024x768 monitor and these interfaces aimed at subnotebooks look very appealing. From screenshots they almost remind me of MythTV, but not hideous. Has anyone played with them enough to know if it is worthwhile?

Re:What manager?

[0100010001010011]

In that case. How does Debian work on these machines?

Why would you replace Xandros with Ubuntu?

[Corrado]

I am currently evaluating the Eee platform for my children's school. I use Debian (Ubuntu) quite a bit and would like to install it instead of Xandros, just for my own comfort and ease of use. However, thats not a good enough reason to dump Xandros and go with something else. I have my doubts about Xandros such as the status of their updates, but don't have any concrete reason that I should dump it for Ubuntu.

What can I go back to the technical director at school with as proof that Ubuntu is "better" for us? Is it faster? Easier to use? One thing I would like to get working is mesh networking. Xandros doesn't have it, Ubuntu might.

Re:Why would you replace Xandros with Ubuntu?

[hairyfeet]

Xandros HAD to sign that deal with MSFT or they would have been toast. You see Xandros is mainly sold as a "plays nice with Windows" solution,which means they HAVE to have Exchange and Active Directory support.MSFT wouldn't give them access to the APIs unless they went with their little deal. And as a long time Xandros business user I could not care less,as it allows me to access any SOHO network I am called in on without having to run Windows on my laptop. And the reason you see mostly older software is because Xandros is first and foremost about stability--which means you avoid the bleeding edge.

IMHO whether the one who is evaluating for the school switches or not can be summed up in the answer to a few simple questions: Are you going to need support for AD and Exchange? What about login scripting? Are you going to have to share resources with Windows machines? If the answer to any of the above is yes,or if your students are going to be allowed to take these machines home where they will want to interact with the Windows boxes,then I would stay with Xandros. I have been using it for nearly 3 years and there really isn't anything that is as good at integrating with Windows networks IMHO.

If the answers to all of the above is no,or if you value bleeding edge over integrating with Windows and don't mind giving up a little stability for it,then you should like Ubuntu. But as someone who has to deal with all kinds of networks I will be keeping Xandros on my laptop. It is fast,stable,and works beautifully with AD and Exchange. But that is my 02c,YMMV

What's special about it?

[edelholz]

So, what did they change from the normal Ubuntu release? I don't see any page on the wiki explaining to me what is special about that flavor! Even more so, the wiki mainly seems to be full of hints how to tweak your (Eee?) Ubuntu. One would think that those tweaks could/should already be implemented.

Re:Awesome

[CheShACat]

Yeah but have you actually looked at the changelog for this? It seems like a bit of a waste of time, barely customised and really !news. Considering how late this is to the eee market, I clicked expecting a custom rolled kernel, etc but all they've done is install drivers and shrink the desktop. They haven't even reduced swappiness?!