New life for my Eee

I have had my Eee 701 for almost three years now and since I graduated I only use it when I go on a long trip for web browsing. I have been on vacation on a farm with little to do accept hack around on the Eee...I have been really tired with the interface that has been locked into the Linux OS. It left little room to add anything to it. I could not really do anything accept basic web browsing. Anyway, I figured out how to enable the advanced desktop mode. Advanced desktop mode opens up a lot more functionality on the Eee including the ability to upgrade firefox to the latest version or add the latest version of Opera. I guess people figured this out years ago and I never knew. Now it is like having a brand new netbook. See before anf after screen shots...

Edited by Yoldering 2011-03-17 5:52 PM








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looks alot like puppy linux to me you should see if you can put pupeee on it (pupeee is a special version of puppy for the eee pc)

Pretty neat, the quit selling the Linux version over here in Norway right after launch because people really didn't like it. (Never understood why, you can always reformat and install another Linux distro.) Have you checked out Ubuntu Netbook Edition? I had it on an Acer One for a while after ditching Windows Vista which took ages to boot haha.

I like to run netbook edition on some of my old dells (ex P/// with 512 mb ram) one of those dells keeps my server running in my attic

I have tried all the different builds for the Eee. I have even tried the regular build of Ubuntu and Linux Mint. All were OK, but the original Xandros build works far better on this machine. I have the 2g Eee so t is hard to install a lot of the versions directly onto the internal hard drive. Now I figure with the advanced mode enabled, I don't have to worry about it.

Oh, and I really don't like any of the netbook versions. They annoy me. I don't like the docks and that is a main reason I didn't like the simple mode on the Eee.

I agree with you on that.

Yeah, I don't get why people love those things.

No clue, but the dock is the one thing which I hate about my Mac computers.

Hi Yoldering! The Asus 701 eeepc with its Default Xandros Linux was a few years ago also one of my stops in the search of the perfect HPC replacement. Easy Mode was too rigid indeed and I discovered soon the Advanced Mode thanks to the eeeuser.com forum. As I recall, the Advanced Mode has 2 interface options, the fastest and easiest is ICEWM and the more complex KDE. Both offer good extra functionality, but the trouble with Linux is that the MS Windows user is getting involved with dependencies and program packages, whether he likes it or not, and also having to work a lot with the console.

After 3-4 month of trying various compatible flavours of Linux of which you already mentioned some, I was giving up on the Asus 701 eeepc mainly for not finding any simple way to install Open Office 3.0 (capable of coping with docx and xlsx files) and my 3G usb modem, too many dependencies had to be changed.

About the distros I recall that I have tested from the usb stick Easy Peasy/Ubuntu Eee, then EeeBuntu with the NetBookRemix (NBR) interface, pupeee, puppy Breeezy based on Puppy Linux, Linux Mint, Damn Small Linux (DSL), etc each one having limitations in the functionality of the wireless board or sound board or working on external screens, etc But the lack of compatibility with MS Office 2007 was definitely the killer for me. Anyway, I think that Breezy was the closest to my taste.

It was a bitter conclusion that I came to seeing that all the free (non-commercial) flavours that I've tested were showing compatibility problems with the 701 eeepc machine. So just like Asus I got tired of Linux and returned to Windows. No wonder that the Linux version of the Asus eeepc was of limited success on the market, Linux is so unfriendly for the Windows users.

Nevertheless, as regular Windows user I enjoyed experiencing the dark side of the moon called Linux and I learned a lot.

Edited by arlex 2011-03-17 10:05 PM

Re; my EEE 900. I played with many linux flavors and found puppeee to be the fastest, surest. Over at the Puppy Forum, the wondrous jemimah built an eee-specific OS and I've used it, pretty much unmodified for over a year. With her custom kernel, I'm cold-booting to desktop in 22 seconds.

She actually taught me to compile a current bluetooth file transfer program, so now I shoot files back and forth b/w WinMo and linux, which I don't think too many people need to do

The OS is very stable, and though you're always root, everything is saved (or not, user's choice) at the end of session into one file that can be saved to other media or overwritten completely. So puppeee safely provides for endless tinkering. But save for updating a couple of programs now and then, I'm running the same thing for the last year:

MS Word, Softmaker, OpenOffice, Abiword, Portabase database that can exchange with HPC Notes, GPE Calendar that can be synched to Google, SeaMonkey Browse/Contacts that can synched to Google, bluetooth file/tethering, conky, on-the-fly CPU speed and fan speed choice...

The setup never ceases to amaze me. The only thing I can't do is sync the phone directly to linux PIMs.

Jake

Sounds cool -- you've reawakened my dormant hope that technology will help me get organized and get all my toys/tools to play nice with each other...

Yeah, linux and bluetooth is always an adventure, which is why I had to learn how to compile a current obexd for file transfers. But once it's up, it's up in Puppy. The OS has the ultimate System Restore. Puppeee also has a really good bluetooth browser app for Nokia S60 phones, much quicker than WinMo browsing, should anyone need that.

Jake

I never really thought about bluetooth with this... Interesting! I am just really glad I can use it again for more than basic surfing.
BTW, there is also a way to update the openoffice too.

Edited by Yoldering 2011-03-22 11:35 AM

Today I decided I am going to start testing with my Eee 701 again. I decided to see how it runs with Android. After searching a little while for a good image, I came across this: http://www.android-x86.org/ they have built an ISO for the 701 that is supposed to work out-of-the-box with the Eee... So I downloaded and burnt the file to CD... I was curious to see if it would boot to a normal dell desktop so I tried. It does. It just has a weird lag while using the mouse.


Anyway, I will be playing around with this for the next few days and I will let y'all know how it works. Anyone have any other images that will work with the Eee? This build is 2.2.2

Okay, in order to load Android 2.2.2 onto my Eee, I had to use uNetbooten. It works really well. Once I got used to right clicking to go back it became really easy. I have not connected to wifi yet, but it is seeing all of the wireless networks. So far, this is very responsive and really quick.

Just out of curiosity I plugged in a USB wired mouse and my Logitech M570 wireless mouse and they worked fine.

More to come...