Reilly2040's Blog

Long time readers will know that a couple of years ago I became the proud owner of a EeePC.  It was the original netbook on the market, a EeePC 701, 7inch screen, 4Gb SSD and all.

And therein lay the problem.  The default Xandros installation provided a good frontend, but to be honest, the update mechanism wasn’t great, and the updates I had managed to install on getting the netbook had pretty much pushed the storage capacity to straining point.

That was fine at the time, but 2 years on, not having been able to install updates was a bit concerning. Not to mention some websites were starting to complain about the outdated version of Firefox.

So being the good little Ubuntu fanboy I am, I thought “sod it, lets give this Netbook remix a whirl”.

Wow. Was I impressed. Now, when it comes to installing on a netbook, you’re thrown an immediate problem. No CD drive. However, Ubuntu’s download page came with great, simple instructions. Download the iso image, insert a USB stick of sufficient size, then download and run a neat little utility that sets up the USB stick with the equivalent of a liveCD. From there, just use the USB stick on the netbook like you would a normal Ubuntu LiveCD to test and install the new OS.

I was really impressed by how painless the whole process was. Granted, I knew from my laptop what installing Ubuntu was like, but I’d been braced for the netbook install to be more complicated.

Once it was installed, the good experience continued.  Canonical really have done a brilliant job of converting Ubuntu to work within the confines of a netbook.   The launcher interface is clean and easy-to-use, and apps make the most of the available screen space, running maximised with the OS’s application menu bar doubling as the usual title bar for applications (and so containing things like the close button).  Software updates and installation are handled just the same as on the main version of Ubuntu, and getting Chromium installed was simple.

Given the tight confines of my netbook (the previously mentioned 7inch screen and 4Gb hard disc) it would’ve been easy for me to run into problems, given how quickly the netbook market evolved to use higher specced machines, but nope, Ubuntu Netbook Remix runs as easily as it installed.  All the hardware worked straight out of the box (so to speak) and I’ve now got the reassurance of knowing all my software is being kept up-to-date.

As I mentioned last night, I was surfing with my EeePC, by downgrading my wireless encryption to WEP.

I had also noticed that my EeePC didn’t like using my router as its DNS server, so I was able to fix that by swapping in the DNS servers for my ISP.   Once I’d done that, I installed updates using the EeePC’s add/remove software tool from the Easy Desktop.   However I noticed that the wireless updates were listed as a broken package.

At this point, the fact I’m an experienced Linux user kicked in, and I decided to just boot up Synaptic instead.  Its pre-installed on the EeePC, so sudo synaptic from the terminal launches it no bother.  I then used it to install all the available upgrades, which included a newer version of wpa_supplicant.

The great news is that this has made all the difference.   WPA now connects to my home network no bother, so I no longer have to worry about lowering my level of security to use my EeePC.  If anyone else buys one, I heartily recommend just using Synaptic to upgrade the software from the default repositories, it seems a bit more reliable than the Asus updater.

Well its been a good couple of days for gadgets. I’m now the proud owner of both an EeePC and an iPod Touch.

The EeePC (which I’m typing this on) is a great little gadget, but it suffers from the problems with my wifi that I’ve had with Linux on my other laptop. Linux and WPA really don’t seem to get on at all. I know from reading posts online that people have gotten it working, but it seems to come with a fair amount of grief. At the moment I’ve dropped my home wifi down to WEP encryption, but that’s not really a proper solution.

However, with my router switched to WEP the EeePC connected no bother and its been great to use tonight. I’ve been chatting to friends with Pidgin and surfing the web happily. I’m looking forward to parking myself in a coffee shop for lunch with it

The iPod Touch is also a cracking gizmo. It’ll make for a great PDA-lite for me, as well as giving me more music and audiobooks on the go. While I love my iPod Nano, I have found the 4Gb a bit restricting at times. Especially as I like my audiobooks.

The great thing is that WPA works flawlessly, so I had it connected to my wifi network in no time. There’s probably not much more I can say about it, but its been great fun, checking my email on-the-fly via the mail application.

One thing I’m really looking forward to is the app store launching. I think the release of user-written applications will really open the device up. It’ll be interesting to see what’s included in the first batch. Among other things, I’m hoping to see an IM application, as I think that could be really handy.

I was in Toys R Us the other day on a toy hunt, when I thought I’d wander over and drool over the EeePC again. Granted, the one they’ve got on display has a busted keyboard, and was switched off (battery seemed dead), but it still lets me marvel over the size of the thing.

Then one of the shop staff saw me looking at it, and helpfully pointed out that there was two versions available. The one on display (4Gb, Linux OS, 7″ screen), and they also had a new version. The new version turned out to be the 12Gb, Windows XP variant of the EeePC 900. Sadly they didn’t have it on display, but it’d be interesting to see.

What I found really interesting though was that it was the two extremes. You could either get the really cheap 4Gb Linux version, or the £320 Windows XP EeePC 900.

Its the first time I’ve seen the EeePC offered, and it only served to re-affirm a worry I’ve got, that stockists will favour stocking the XP version over the Linux version of the 900. Granted, TRU isn’t a computer shop, so I’d hope that Curries, Comet and the like (sticking to the high street) will maybe have all the variants (specifically Curries, since I’ve not seen the current models in Comet).

For myself though, I reckon that when I get one, it’ll be the 4Gb EeePC with the 7″ screen. While it’d be nicer to have the bigger screen and 20Gb storage, I just can’t justify the £320. At that price, the portability loses some of its attractiveness to me, in favour of just getting a better speced laptop. The £220 version ticks the boxes for me in terms of size and cost. (Although I’d also be investing in a healthily-sized SD card to bump up the storage.)

TrustedReviews.com have the first review of the new Asus EeePC 900 up here. In a nutshell, they love it.

While the price has been pushed up quite a bit by the improvements, there’s no doubt that you’re getting your money’s worth here. And its great to see a manufacturer actually passing on the savings made by not installing Windows. It’ll be very interesting to see how the sales of the two models compare. While I can see a lot of people being swayed by the familiar OS, there’s no doubt in my mind that the Linux model, with its 20Gb storage will be the superior model to own.

I was catching up with the ZDNet blogs I read, when I noticed this post in the Hardware 2.0 blog.

Of course, a religious war quickly erupted in the comments section. MS vs Linux. Thank God no Macs were involved.

However, despite the allegations of bias, I do think he has a point. It *is* a blow for Linux. However, its not an unexpected one. Once it was established that the EeePC could run XP, then of course Asus were going to capitalise on it. At the end of the day, put Joe Public infront of two EeePCs, one running XP and one running Linux, he’s probably going to go for the one with the familiar OS. From Asus’ point of view, it just makes sense that an XP model is going to be more popular than a Linux one.

However, it is a blow. The EeePC was a big win for Linux on the desktop, and represented a great way to get Linux to the masses. Now, I’m not getting into the argument of whether its ready for the masses or not. Its not perfect, but then, neither’s Windows, and Linux is certainly a lot better than it was in terms of desktop use. While I still open up a terminal to do some things, its not the necessity it once was.

With the XP model shipping, then its going to be the preferred choice for most people, who would’ve otherwise had to buy a model running Linux.

But I also agree with the posters who say this isn’t that bad news. The ratio shipping is still 3:2. So Asus obviously still have a lot of confidence in the Linux model, and the Linux model is also going to be cheaper and offer a better spec (I believe). What demand is like for the Linux model once a Windows version is available, we’ll see once it hits the shelves, but as it stands, yes its a blow, but I don’t think its a huge one.

I’m a self-confessed gadget-lover, and every day at the moment I find my list of “stuff to buy when I have money” is growing.

Aside from the ever-present desire to get a nice TFT monitor to replace my aging (but going strong) 17″ CRT Samsung, I’ve got my resolute vow that this year I’m getting an iPod Touch.

The iPhone is something I’m just not interested in, but for me the iPod Touch is way more enticing. Since my Creative Zen died last year, I’ve been very impressed with my 4Gb Nano. However, being used to more space, I’m finding the 4Gb a bit constricting at times (especially now that I can use podcasts), so the 16Gb iPod Touch is very tempting. And with the builtin wifi for web surfing, I’m thinking it could be quite a natty gadget for wasting away a lunch hour in a coffee shop.

However, increasingly the Asus EeePC is on my radar. It got an excellent write-up in Linux Format, and people seem to be going crazy for them. Its a great idea to use the solid state drive, and it seems to be incredibly flexible for its size. The price point is proving a winner as well. And, of course, the fact it runs Linux really appeals to me.

All I need now is some cash burning a hole in my pocket