After a couple of days with the Eee PC, I was bored.   Ok, to tell the truth, I was kinda bored after the first night.  Again it’s a great little PC for traveling and light duty but I tend to like large screens and fast processors.

Since the Dell nettops are taking their time in arriving, I decided to check out what else was available to hold my attention.  The Dells apparently use Ubuntu with a modified GUI.   A-HA…  Temporary distraction!

I do like Ubuntu (ok, Xubuntu) and use it on most PCs, so why the hell not?  I found the page, downloaded the .ISO, and went to work.   The page refers to these computers as liliputers, which I found amusing.  I figured I’d load Ubuntu and if I didn’t like it or it didn’t work, I could restore with the Eee PC disk.

Keep in mind that some of the benefits of the Eee are weight and cost.  One reason is that it has no optical drive (CD/DVD).  This can be a dealbreaker for some but it doesn’t bother me; USB drives hold a lot more data anyway.  So if you don’t have an external drive, you have to find another way to install software.

Fortunately I came across the aforementioned page.  In messing with Linux, we learn to overcome things that wouldn’t necessarily be tolerated from commercial software.  I’ve done a fair amount of this during my brief acquaintance with Linux.   This fellow got it right with the software and his instructions.  Go there for the details but it went like this:

1. download the custom eee-ubuntu .ISO and unetbootin (Win or lin)
2. run unetbootin from a convenient PC - point it to a blank USB stick and go
3. boot the Eee PC from the USB stick  (hit TAB for menu)
4. install eee-ubuntu
5. reboot

Sounds tough, no?

I slightly mangled the task by remembering a different installation routine that told me not to use a swap partition, as solid state drives (and USB sticks) have only a finite life.  Yes, you heard that right - you can only write to them a certain number of times.  I don’t know what the number is but I haven’t worn one out yet.  I manually partitioned, removing all existing partitions and creating one 8g new partition.

Hey lefty - that’s some pretty funky math… 8g from a 40g SSD?

What nobody seems to mention is that there’s a faster 8g drive and a 32g additional drive (that’s 40g, even in New Math<tm>).  It’s best to put your OS on the 8g drive, even if you don’t use all of it.  I don’t know enough to tell you what happens if you don’t use a swap partition, other than potential slowing when RAM is full.  If you choose automated partitioning, this all gets done for you and won’t be an issue (unless you don’t want the swap partition).

How Does it Work?

Very nicely, thank you.

No, I mean it.  I had a bad reaction to the GUI that sits on top of Xandros.

I want to reiterate that my comments are relative to me and my use of the software/hardware.  I am by no means saying the software sucks eggs.  I’m probably trying to say that it just isn’t doing it for me.  Others will probably like it.  Some may love it.  Some may launch it.

The standard GUI is absolutely tremendous, if you’re talking about ease of use and getting Linux into the hands of people who don’t know (or care) what Linux is.  I just feel like it’s much more useful for five-year-olds.  I also can’t stand an OS that `helps’ me by hiding all the functionality (Vista anyone?).  As we joke at work, we don’t want an easy-to-operate OS.  We want an OS that’s difficult.  One with nothing hidden.  One that lets us explore the subtleties of it.

Eee-ubuntu is pretty cool in comparison.  It was best described by my wife, who used both OSes tonight.  ”I like Ubuntu.  The first one was too… childish.  Ubuntu is just right.”  My wife is not a computer geek.  She uses Windows XP to read email and play games.

Xandros succeeded in hiding everything but what they wanted you to see.  This is a good thing if the PC is for a newbie (or your grandmother).  A short amount of hacking at work revealed that Xandros went pretty far to `shield’ users from any of that nasty operating system junk.  It’s just a bunch of huge icons that you click on to start programs.  They don’t want you to have multiple users, add icons, or much of anything else.

Eee-ubuntu is closer to regular Ubuntu.  It’s the same basic idea of tabs containing groups of programs but it treats you as less of an idiot.  You can have multiple users (there’s a wife joke in there somewhere), and do a lot of the standard customizations.  They spent much less effort hiding the OS from the user but it’s still pretty friendly.

If I were going to hold onto the Eee-Pc, I would try to figure out how to graft Xfce onto it, like on my other PCs.  Because of its anemic performance, display, and keyboard, I’m going to go with a lighter full-powered laptop.

But all is not lost: when we decide on a final configuration (or OS), they’ll be used at work by people who just don’t want to carry a full size laptop when they travel.   It will be very interesting to see if there’s a preference of OS.  So far no one has asked what the OS is.  It was suggested that we tell them it’s SLOS: the Secret Laptop Operating System and leave it at that.

Once again, I think the industry hasn’t awakened to the potential of this type of GUI.  This can be the key to getting Linux onto the desktop (if you care to).  It’s so stupid simple that anyone can operate it.  And when I say anyone, I mean people at work who can’t locate the power button, don’t understand `reboot’, and refer to the physical computer as the CPU.   If this thing had a touch screen it would be almost idiot-proof.

Of course, Murphy’s Laws state that if you make something idiot-proof, they’ll just make a better idiot.