[Discuss] EEE

[Patrick]

On Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:05:10 -0800
"Daniel M German" wrote:

> Well, in an irrational moment I bought an EEE. It was like (i have
> been told :) walking into a shoe store and ending with shoes you were
> not expecting to buy.
> 
> I got the 4G, black model.

Ooooh, I wanted black!  But those weren't out yet.

So I think I'll get a spare battery, in black, a black panel or
two [or perhaps replacement keys; I've already removed the
CAPS-LOCK and don't intend to replace it], and try for some kind
of cop-car / Imperial Stormtrooper / Clarus the Dogcow motif.

> So far, it is great. I am _very_
> impressed. I have recommended it to at least 2 people who were no
> linux users and are very happy with a "Easy Mode" and the fact that
> they can do soo much without having to install anything (one of them
> installed Eclipse, just for kicks :)

Yeah, I've been asked about mine twice, at Serious Coffee.

> 
> It is half the size (both weight and dimensions) of my macbook. I
> haven't had a Linux laptop for the last 4 years. I got tired of
> "recompiling my kernel". This computer works out of the box.

Hmm.  Looks like a lot has happened in the past four years then.
I think you'll get to like the Synaptic package manager.  :-)

I've never knowingly recompiled the kernel, but a kernel update
a while ago might have done that for me.

> I
> connected an HP printer and worked like a charm. It autodetected my
> network printer without me doing anything. It even mounts an ipod (if
> vfat formatted). 
> 
> My only complain so far is that the buttons of the touchpad are _very_
> stiff.

This seems to loosen up with use.  Have patience.

My problem was that the default server [update.eeepc.asus.com] has
very little software available, and they're not plugged into the
main Xandros repositories.  However, I've had no trouble [yet]
adding software from the Debian Etch repositories, as long as I
steer clear of KDE and Qt apps.  Unfortunately, this includes
Opera.  :-\

> 
> I am not sure why I needed it :) but it certainly is a nice
> entertaining station: today in the kitchen I spend some time reading
> the NYTimes while listening to music.
> 
> I think these computers are going to change the way people perceive
> Linux in the future. 

It already has, for me.

After installing Xubuntu on another machine, and using it for a
while, I thought Linux was very good, mostly easy to use, but not
*quite* ready for `prime time' yet.  Now I think it is.  Then
again, I also knew Xubuntu aims for a leaner, less resource-hungry
system overall, for performance reasons, and for older computers.
This leaves a few gaps in its feature set, but not many.  I'd
never tried Gnome or KDE.

This is quite different; very slick, no hardware / software
issues because it's a factory-installed system, and so far I
haven't read a single manpage to get anything to work.

But it does leave me with some mixed feelings about commercial
Linux.  I'm a little less inclined to tinker with it, because
everything Just Works already, and besides, there's no compiler,
no header files to compile with... no nothing for home-brewed
application development.  It does support a lot of scripting
languages right out of the box though.

So if Xandros ever got to be as big as Microsoft, would that suck
just as bad?  Probably, but that seems unlikely with so many other
Linuxen around to choose from.

Overall, it's been very interesting to compare the two systems,
and overall, I do like it.  :-)

> 
> Anybody else has one?

Yes, and I'd like to present it.  If you want to bring yours and
toss in a few comments / observations at that meeting, I'd
appreciate the help.  :-)



Patrick.

-- 
If I have trouble installing Linux, something is wrong.
Very wrong.
		-- Linus Torvalds