A Review of the ASUS Eee PC with Xandros Linux pre-installed.
Yesterday I finally received my ASUS Eee PC 901 pre-installed with Xandros Linux. Note that Xandros is a Debian-based distribution. I was really excited to start playing with this new toy. Almost from the beginning I was experiencing problems and after doing some Internet searching, I realized I was not the only one. All problems though were related to the operating system and not the hardware.
By default the operating system loads in a Simple or Beginner Mode. Knowing that this PC is mostly intended for basic PC users that just use the Internet and a few productivity applications, I did not mind it. There are some methods to enable Advanced Mode which is the desktop that you and I are more familiar with. I must admit though that the tabbed navigation feature for the desktop is kind of neat. It is just that the icons and font sizes are much larger than they need to be. It sort of makes you feel like you are playing with a children’s educational toy.
On the first power up (out-of-the-box) you are asked a few questions which will set up your login profile (i.e. name and password). At first glance all seemed pretty smooth. I have a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1GB of RAM, a 20GB SSD, etc. The wireless signal being broadcasted was picked up and connected without any problems. I was good to go, right? Well, not really.
- When I first shut it down, it did not shut down properly. The screen went black after a few seconds but the PC was on and stayed on. I had to manually press down on the power button to force a hard shut down. I have yet to experience this behavior since the first and only time. After searching on the net I found that this was an extremely common problem.
- The webcam and bluetooth have been disabled by default and it baffles me to think that ASUS is attempting to build a user friendly environment which may require a user to travel into less than familiar territories such as the BIOS to enable it.
- Sometimes when moving the mouse cursor from the touch pad, the cursor seems to jump to random places.
- When you initiate an application from Simple Mode, there seems to be a long pause between the time you clicked to the time it takes to start loading.
- In Simple Mode the icewm uses a Windows XP theme ONLY!!! Seriously?!?!
- Even the graphical update process is horrible. It is horribly set up and horribly managed. I would normally bring up the terminal (to bring up uxterm simply press CTRL + ALT + T) and use aptitude, but one of the updates killed this hotkey function and I am unable to get it back! A PC without a command line! I cannot survive this.
- Also out-of-the-box the operating system came partitioned into two separate partitions: (1) the system (for apps and such) and (2) the home (for personal files). After I finished my initial updates the 4GB system partition read 100% used and I am unable to get more updates and install any more Eee apps. I also cannot do anything from the OS to modify the partition. There is a disk viewing utility that you can load but it only allows for you to view your partitions and not modify it! After some research I also found out that this was a known problem. The Eee PC was setup with UnionFS. Space becomes a problem when updating applications, in which older packages never get removed and space is wasted.
What kills me is that they give you a set of recovery CD and DVD but unless you have a USB external DVD-ROM drive you will obviously not be able to do much with this. It would have been more appropriate for them to install an image on a small USB Flash Drive and package that in instead of the CD/DVD.
Very shortly I will be dumping this operating system and install the Ubuntu Netbook Remix or even Easy Peasy (another Ubuntu-based distribution specifically for the ASUS Eee PC). All the frustration is just not worth it. I also believe that this Xandros Linux installation may be giving GNU/Linux a bad name to the end-user market. Whatever it is doing, it may not be doing the good we expect it to be doing in the adoption of GNU/Linux.
Update 20Feb09: I installed Easy Peasy which is a Ubuntu remix for the ASUS Eee PCs and I love it. It works great out-of-the-box! I am glad to be rid of that Xandros nightmare.
Comment by admin — 20. February 2009 @ 11:01
Got same experience with my 4GB 701 verson of the Asus EEEPC. Besides WPA-keys couldn’t be used. No copy or paste keys in the terminal and furthermore the baddest of all possible font size and type, not to mention the horror in the terminal.
Switched to Ubuntu Remix and the world looked bright!
Still no ad for linux.
Comment by Hein1957 — 20. February 2009 @ 13:48
I tried Xandros some time ago and it was very buggy, crashing all the time. Since then, I have found better distros …
Comment by ObiWanKenobi — 20. February 2009 @ 17:08
I have had my eeePc 901 for 6 mths now using the simple mode Xandros distro. I’ve had some of the issues but not all.
Anybody experiencing these issues should check out eeeuser.com fantastic community site for this machine.
1 area Xanros is a winner for me is the network manager. Beats Ubuntus new one hands down
Comment by Lukerazor — 20. February 2009 @ 17:35
Frankly, it is hard for me to understand why most OEM’s simply do not install a generic Ubuntu LTS and make sure any required drivers are available from the Ubuntu repositories.
Comment by Bruce — 20. February 2009 @ 18:21
I have just ditched my default Xandros off my eee - in favour of an Ubuntu derivative called CrunchBangLinux. It is a very lean version of Ubuntu based upon the array kernel - they have also created a distro specifically for the eee - called, guess what, Cruncheee!
I tried Cruncheee as a live CD through my usb stick and really liked it. It picked up all my hardware and just worked! It is very configurable and with openbox as the windows manager along with conky it keeps it very light. After trialling it on the usb stick - there was an option to install direct to the HD.
Here’s some links to get you up and going - http://crunchbanglinux.org/ and http://www.crunchbanglinux.org/wiki/cruncheee_installation_guide
Comment by zak_neutron — 20. February 2009 @ 18:37
I have the 701 and while the default Xandros was pretty lame, at least that told me all the hardware was jake so I reburned it with XUbuntu, Debian Etch, Ubuntu and finally I have been on a sweet install of Debian Lenny tailored for the EEE. Since its a netinstall, its like 50 megs or less, fits on a tiny stick, and also because its a net install you only install the stuff you really need on it. This means this system is fairly full-bodied for me (oob I can do C/C++/Python development with IDEs, watch movies, play games, read ebooks and more) and of the original 4G flash storage I still have just over 2G free plus whatever I plug into it. Also it boots fast, shuts down faster. Does wireless; never bothered configuring much of the rest though I did use this for Skype-based webcam guitar lessons for a while. This thing gets the tar beat out of it literally every day of the week since last January and its been really solid so far.
The other really sweet thing about this class of netbooks that can change things big-time for travelers is in one box and with a few USB or SD cards they have the ability to store a few dozen movies, shows, etc; you show up in a hotel with one of these, leaf through the Pay Per View crud and realize on your little EEE (or whatever) you have everything you could want right there. If you have a static IP like us you can use the hotel internet access to connect to your home NAS and download anything you like.
And for Geeks like us? Another benefit is that it really doesn’t look like a real computer so those relatives of yours who are not as literate don’t realize that while everyone else is enjoying a family game of twister or badminton, you are sitting there nerding out hacking the next door neighbors wifi for fun. Replace the fun w/nethack, doom (I keep like a 3000 pack of doom levels on a stick from a CD from the DOS days), reading comics (I keep watchmen + several years worth of Spiderman/batman/IronMan collected from various GIT DVDs that you can find on Amazon + a lot of manga), 20 or so episodes of shows like BSG/family guy/etc, handful of movies (frankly a lot of folks whinged about the speakers in the lid of this version making the screen smaller but bite me; they are great for watching stuff), 10-20 interactive fiction games (marvy for the mtg room), ~ 400 technical books in ebook format and to cap it off, a really fun linux game called Uplink. I had bought this years ago and was delighted to see that they ditched the ridiculous DRM and that it worked well at the oddball resolution of the EEE.
Longer batter life, a *little* more storage would be nice. My wife has the 512 meg model and my 1G doesn’t really feel that much more powerful.
Comment by Jeff Cobb — 20. February 2009 @ 22:43
Sorry meant to leave some screen shots (literally shots of my EEE becoming all kinds of things. http://jbcobb.net/?p=162
Doh.
Jeff
Comment by Jeff Cobb — 20. February 2009 @ 22:51
I haven’t tried the 901, but my 701 has been flawless for the last year. I haven’t encountered any of the issues noted here, and all the Xandros features and updates have worked perfectly: webcam, hotkeys, wireless WPA, etc. Well, not all the voice commands work, so that’s one item shy of perfect. I tested other distros (eeeXubuntu, Eeedora, Puppy) and these have worked well, but since I use it mainly as a netbook, I haven’t benefited much from a traditional desktop interface.
Comment by Bobber — 21. February 2009 @ 02:28
gOS is the best solution for a netbook. Ubuntu based + google gadgets + working media players + wine. As near to OS X as you will get on a netbook.
http://linuxexperimentation.blogspot.com/2008/09/gos-3-on-eee-pc-901.html
Comment by adey — 21. February 2009 @ 05:35
Well it goes to show WHY it is GOOD to have more than one Linux Distro around… is it not? Imagine if XANDROS was the ONLY choice… it seems they are trying to compete head to head with XP, by immulating XP’s theme (look and feel).
Turning the fonts into BIG FONTS, was probably ment to target elderly people, and children. Parents that buy they Netbook for their kids.
Again, thank GOD that there is choice in the Linux world. Now, imagine a choice in the Windows world? One day for gaming… one day…
Comment by Matt Kukowski — 21. February 2009 @ 17:37
> When I first shut it down, it did not shut down properly.
Sounds to me like you mixed up the suspend and shutdown button.
> The webcam and bluetooth have been disabled by default
On my EeePC 901 the webcam has been turned on right when I had bought it from the tonlineshop. Don’t know about bluetooth as I haven’t used it.
> In Simple Mode the icewm uses a Windows XP theme ONLY!!! Seriously?!?!
And what is the problem with that taking into the account the target user they had in mind? They just want to keep it somewhat familiar and simple. Fair enough.
> I would normally bring up the terminal (to bring up uxterm simply press CTRL + ALT + T)
> and use aptitude, but one of the updates killed this hotkey function
> and I am unable to get it back!
Sounds to me like you added some repository that didn’t work well together with the Asus/Xandros repository. That is your own fault then as you’re trying to do something with the OS that it was not designed for. That’s about like trying to use debian repositories in Ubuntu with versions of both that don’t blend well. Did the manual tell that you should use aptitude?
I didn’t have the Ctrl-+Alt+t issue you described in almost half a year of usage of my EeePC 901 on Xandros and a year of the EeePC 701.
I get the impression that you mainly tried to use the EeePC in ways that it wasn’t primarily designed for (it was obviously mostly meant to be a device that you can use for browsing and doing some e-mail / office stuff).
If you decide to use it as a full desktop replacement and install lots of things from other distributions onto it — that’s ok, but you shouldn’t start to complain that things don’t work anymore.
I think that the Xandros distribution they created for this device was a good choice for all people who have little computer knowledge and know little about Linux. For all other people there are certainly more appealing choices.
Comment by Pete — 22. February 2009 @ 02:59
>>Sounds to me like you mixed up the suspend and shutdown button.
There was no mix up. It was a shut down, the screen went black with a cursor blinking on the top left corner and the LCD backlight stayed lit. I gave it a few more minutes and nothing. Had to manually press power to really power it down. In fact I saw the same problem reported by others on the EeeUser Forums.
>>And what is the problem with that taking into the account the
>>target user they had in mind? They just want to keep it somewhat
>>familiar and simple. Fair enough.
So are average end users that “stupid” that they need to be kept in familiar territory only? Will they get lost if it doesn’t look like Microsoft Windows XP? Is this the type of mentality we wish to promote? Whatever happened to PC users before Windows XP?
>>Sounds to me like you added some repository that didn’t work well
>>together with the Asus/Xandros repository.
Actually, no. I went through their update manager and through their default repositories; as I had mentioned earlier on how horrible it was and never had the chance to bring up aptitude to do anything because a keyboard update had disabled/removed the ability to bring up the terminal.
>>If you decide to use it as a full desktop replacement and install
>>lots of things from other distributions onto it
I didn’t even get the chance to do that because you would require the terminal in order to modify the appropriate files to gain access into the advanced mode. I was stuck in simple mode and again, through their repositories that was defaulted on their update manager all updates/applications were installed which in turn filled all 100% of my system partition primarily because the older packages were never removed. I never even had the chance to do “crazy” things. The entire time I kept the average end user in mind and the entire time I felt sorry for those who are going to have to struggle through this.
Comment by admin — 22. February 2009 @ 07:28
Some of you may have already tried this I haven’t but want to mention that Vector Linux just released Version 6.0 — has Xfce as default desktop but also includes LXDE. I believe that this may be a good platform for the net-book type machines.
give it a try and let us know. haven’t received my machine yet.
Comment by kc1di — 24. February 2009 @ 05:55
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Comment by laptop battery — 25. February 2009 @ 02:00
so i got this thing to and i have full desktop:
http://eeesite.net/2007/11/eee-pc-enabling-full-desktop-mode.html this is also installiation guide
and so i want what you will send me all default repositories from synaptic package manager cuz i lost it.then you will send me it i will give here more sites with useful information about repositories synaptic installing and other stuff.
it will bet great if you will send me repositories via email.
Comment by Starioshka_Prokol — 4. April 2009 @ 03:45
Starioshka,
I do apologize but I couldn’t handle the installation of Xandros that the unit came with and almost immediately installed easypeasy over it: http://geteasypeasy.com/
This is a Ubuntu OS configured specifically for the ASUS Eee PCs. It runs great and has a wealth of applications available for it. But here is a list of repositories and here is another
Comment by admin — 4. April 2009 @ 06:43
can you copy them here because i was banned from there…
Comment by Starioshka_Prokol — 8. April 2009 @ 11:57
I got it!!!
woooohoooo!!!! not from there i finded them here:http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:beginners_guide?s=thesaurus
This is a bit part what shows where it is:(part of that page)…………………………………….
Warning: This script was created specifically for the 701 models. If you have a different model, then you should replace the Standard repos section with the repositories from your original sources.list file. Also, replace any other occurrences of p701 with your model number (e.g. p900, p901, etc.).
# Standard repos
deb http://update.eeepc.asus.com/p701/ p701 main
deb http://update.eeepc.asus.com/p701/en/ p701 main
# Comunity repos that should be great but just **** with my system
#deb http://download.tuxfamily.org/eeepcrepos/ p701 main etch
# Xandros repos
deb http://xnv4.xandros.com/xs2.0/upkg-srv2 etch main contrib non-free
deb http://dccamirror.xandros.com/dccri/ dccri-3.0 main
deb http://www.geekconnection.org/ xandros4 main
# Debian repos
deb http://http.us.debian.org/debian/ etch main contrib non-free
It will also create a preferences file as follows:
Package: *”
Pin: origin update.eeepc.asus.com”
Pin-Priority: 950″
Package: *”
Pin: origin”
………………………………….
Comment by Starioshka_Prokol — 9. April 2009 @ 00:53
Forgive me for barging in on an AsusEEE discussion, but my search for help has led me here. Two days ago I got a Lenovo Ideapad S9e — a little 8.9″, 512k, 4G SSD — with Novell SLED 10sp2 installed. I’m a long-time PC/dos/windows user, but really wanted to switch to Linux, since I use opensourceware whenever I can. I like the compact little machine, but they loaded the SLED without a games package and, for the life of me, I can’t figure out how to get one. (No point having a netbook without my solitaire and mahjongg!) Am I imagining it, or is Novell as proprietary as MS? On another forum someone suggested that I switch over to Easy Peasy instead. How hard would it be for a complete Linux newbie to install a new system and make it work?
Comment by Holly — 6. May 2009 @ 10:47
Holly,
I hope all is going well. I am not familiar with how SLED is packaged for your Ideapad. Traditionally, you are able to venture off into the SuSE repositories via Yast, an all-in-one control panel. Although the link provided is intended for OpenSuse, the same should (hopefully) apply with SLED 10: http://en.opensuse.org/Add_Package_Repositories_to_YaST
If you cannot find this control panel (usually labaled Yast) through the GUI, open up a terminal and type yast2. At least that was the case the last time I worked with SuSE.
If SLED proves to be too much trouble, another recommendation is to try Canonical’s Ubuntu Netbook Remix. I know this one comes with solitaire and mahjongg! But I cannot gaurantee that you will obtain 100% hardware compatability. First read the supported hardware list on the wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UNR
And do some additional researching on the web before attempting to install the latter.
Petros
Comment by admin — 6. May 2009 @ 12:00
Thanks, Petros. This was helpful and clear. I’ll take a look at the Netbook Remix. I’ve tried some things with Yast2 but got conflict messages.
Comment by Holly — 6. May 2009 @ 14:17
I have buy 1 asus comando yesterday and is sooo good man i can play any game very fast and the control pannel for overclock is very easy so use
Comment by rafael ascanio — 5. September 2009 @ 12:12
Wow
very nice blog man .. and usefull information on it.
Comment by Games-Game — 7. December 2009 @ 12:40