Asus Eee PC Tweak Guide

Heh, I have one of those. I've only used it for a 2,5" sata drive though. It should support opticaldrives though.

 

Pay about $10 or $20 bucks for an IDE/PATA/SATA to USB adaptors for HDD recovery and then either borrow one from your PC/Notebook or use one your got lying around. Just off the top of my head I have 3 IDE/PATA DVD-RW lying around from all the PCs I work on.

If the EEE allows you to boot off a LAN you might be able to share a ROM or Image drive over a network, haven't tried that before, but a friend has something similar set up at his home where you can just install Windows XP off his network.

 

Doe anyone know if e3 will run Google SketchUp Pro 6 adequately (or at all? It requires a GPU that is fully Open-GL compliant).

Assume I upgrade to 1Gb or 2Gb RAM, whichever one's the max an e3 can use.

 

Recommended configuration:

* 2 GHz Pentium® 4 processor or higher
* 2 GB RAM
* 500 MB of available hard-disk space. 15GB for Vista.
* 3D class Video Card with 512MB of dedicated memory.
* 3 button, scroll-wheel mouse


I doubt the EEE PC falls into that mix

 

I just need it to be runnable:

Windows (Current version: 6.0.1099)
Microsoft Windows® 2000, XP, or Vista. Please click here for special considerations when using SketchUp with Vista.
.NET 1.1 framework is required. For more information about the .NET framework, click here.
Video card that is 100% OpenGL compliant. Please ensure you have the latest driver for your card. To upgrade your driver, click here.
Windows compatible pointing device
Microsoft® Internet Explorer 6.0 or higher
Windows® Media Player or QuickTime 5.0 and web browser for multimedia tutorial.

Minimum Hardware Requirements with Microsoft Windows® 2000, XP Home or Professional Editions:

600 MHz Pentium® III processor
128 MB RAM
128 MB of available hard-disk space

 

according to intel the GMA 900 is openGL 1.4 compliant

http://www.intel.com/cd/products/services/emea/eng/150529.htm

 

thanks so much...your info rocks!!

 

I would have bought the EEE if Asus used a screen that filled up the entire size of the lid.. It looks incredibly cheap, like a kid's toy at it's current size.. Of which it probably is anyways considering it's price. I can see some larger LCD screen hacks being put into motion soon though.

Jay

 

That's mighty amazing! Maybe I'll try that myself... I remember I have a BT USB lying around...

And translation of that site will come when I have time.

 

I know you could almost say it looks like a 400 dollar super small notebook. What next... no optical drive?!

 

if I only use it for office (word, ppt, excel), web, msn messenger, can I stay with linux?

with linux installed, is 512MB enough? how much space left on the HD?

Thanks.

 

Something like 1.4 meg is left on the internal flash drive, and, yes, if the reviewers are on-target and you're looking for an ultra-portable for light-weight word-processing, spread-sheet work, and ppt presentations, as well as Web & email access, the eee's should do all that for you. I'll know better once mine arrives.

As for "disk" space, I'm going to solve that problem by buying an SD memory card and dedicating the eee's built-in memory to my OS and applications program files and using the SD card for storing all my applications data. A 4GB SD card will hold all of my My Documents folder except for the gigabytes of My Pictures stuff I haul around. I'll use FolderMatch to keep my main laptop and the eee files in sync.

Since I have an old laptop hard drive and USB enclosure I can use that for backups and My Pictures stuff.

 

Kevin,

Awesome site and tips. Hey, I tried to add the start button hack but every time I exit (ctrl X) and then save (Y) - it doesn't stay saved so I do not get the start button after rebooting. I have tried several times but no luck. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Todd

 

That's typically a symptom of not editing the file with Root permissions.

 

Doesn't the "sudo bash" command give me Root permission? I was able to do all the steps except the last one doesn't stick. It asks me to save but it doesn't stay saved.

 

Well persistence paid off. I am not sure what I did differently but it finally worked.

 

hey, I found a blog post about enabling the advanced interface option permanently...
http://www.bradlinder.net/2007/11/eee-pc-enabling-full-desktop-mode.html

Direct quote from site:

"1. Press Ctrl+Alt+T to bring up a terminal
2. Type "sudo bash" to gain root access
3. Type "apt-get update" to make sure you download the most up to date packages
4. Type "apt-get install kicker" and answer "y" when asked if you want to install
5. Type "apt-get install ksmserver" and answer "y" when asked if you want to install
6. Type exit twice to leave the terminal

When you hit the power button, you'll notice a new option that says Full Desktop next to Task Manager."



Anyone willing to try this to see if it really works? I'm kinda dissappointed that the advanced interface was taken out. If it really is this easy to enable it, I'm going to be one happy camper.

 

Incidentally, there's yet another way to get a terminal window up - a better program than xterm. In File Manager, Tools/Console starts up the KDE "Konsole" app, which has many menus allowing custom install of colours, font, etc.

The poster who remarked:

I would have bought the EEE if Asus used a screen that filled up the entire size of the lid.. It looks incredibly cheap, like a kid's toy at it's current size.. Of which it probably is anyways considering it's price. I can see some larger LCD screen hacks being put into motion soon though.

...is right and wrong. The screen is the worst feature. Reviewers have remarked that most web pages assume you have at least 1024 these days, so you do a lot of horizontal scrolling when surfing with the EEE.

But...the funny thing is, 800x480 is just the widescreen version of 640x480, which was considered most impressive when VGA came in. Somehow work got done then! 800x480 is more pixels than 720x480, which is DVD resolution. It should be enough, it's incompatible software/page design that makes it look bad.

Worse than the horizontal scrolling is the *inability* to scroll (the whole display) vertically when some programmer designs a dialog box more than 480 high...and of course "OK" and "Cancel" are out of sight at the bottom. The EEE actually has some software you can't use right, not all the dialogs work because of this. As the poster says, there'll be hacks before long; perhaps a virtual 1024x768 display that you can scroll around in the 800x480 physical window.

This product doesn't need much to really take off in a future version: Bump the RAM a bit, fill the lid with a 1024x768, bump the drive to 16GB...all doable at the same price point in a couple of years. This EEE PC is the "Apple I" ... it was the "Apple II" that really sold millions.

 

That's what I'm using it for. Office docs are handled by OpenOffice. Web by firefox, yahoo/msn/googletalk/aol/irc etc...are handled by Pidgin, email by thunderbird. No anti virus needed with linux although they added one here - I don't know why. Maybe to make windows users feel comfortable.

With linux, you could probably get away with 256mb ram. You get left with 1.6gigs of hd space but to augment that you could install an sd and have firefox/thunderbird download everything there.

About the screen, there are some application windows where the bottom part is hidden, if this happens you can press Alt and left mouse and simply move the entire window up to show the bottom. To increase browser/email font, you press Ctrl +.

 

Anyone with an eee pc Open!!!!!! Can you help me????

I must be stupid... I was attempting to use a external battery to boost battery time and forgot to check my polarity (why is it always the simple stuff that kills you?)

So I burned out what I think is a diode. The eee pc still works off the asus battery but the adapter will not charge it. That jives with the diode burning out. (at least I hope all it turns out to be)

here is the location... (circled)

I just hope I'll be able to get something to work in its place... Heck theres enough room that if I had to (and all it is for is polarity protection), I could get a regular sized diode and clip it down and solder it in.

I guess I found two similar (at least they look similar) just up from the processor towards the battery labeled L4 and one by the (northridge?) labeled A2

Can you help me select a replacement diode (I can solder it on.) digikey? jameco?

I need someone to read the top of the part and tell me which way the line is.

Thanks for your help...

 

Sorry I can't help you there man. But I believe there are already quite a few pics out of the inside parts of the eee. I think this site has pics of an opened one as well maybe that would help?

 

yep there are a lot of pics but none are hi res enough to see the near invisable marking on the diode.

 

I can't wait.
I am sooo NOT gonna install Windows ANYTHING
I have a laptop that runs windows.
I want a lean mean Web 2.0 machine

and i am thinking ....external USB to PCMCIA Card Adapter
and a wireless modem card to make it purrrfect.

 

too bad nobody makes a mini pci-e wireless modem card. That would be flippin sweet. Who knows, maybe verizon or sprint or someone will offer a model with a built in modem for cheap with a service contract.


Now, THAT would be sweet.

 

The majority of the cards out there are mini PCI-e (notebooks with it builtin use this). Problem is the slot isnt designed for a wireless card, but instead flash memory expansion.

 

It looks like someone pulled off a bluetooth mod, my knowledge of such things and how to do them is limited however so i'll leave the discussion to the pros, this appeared relatively easy however. stress relatively

http://www.engadget.com/2007/11/28/eee-pc-mod-brings-some-internal-bluetooth/

 

You sure? I've never seen one that wasn't a PC card device.

But since this is a standard port, i'd think it could be used for more than just memory expansion.

 

I saw that you finally got this working... but I wanted to go ahead and mention that I had a similar problem. You need to exit (Ctrl+X), save (confirm with a "Y"), and type an "Enter" to save the file under the current name. I did this procedure twice, without typing the "Enter" and no Start button. With the "Enter," everything worked fine.

Also, for the Gimp program. Is there any way to get that to show up on the Desktop? It would be convenient to load it from there. I have the Start button and currently run it from there, but I would prefer for it to be available on the desktop.

 

Does anyone know where to purchase a spare 5200 mAh battery for this ASUS EEE PC 4G?

 

Where can one buy a spare 5200mAh battery for this thing online or in the USA?

 

Thanks for the great tweak guide for the eee pc. Do I understand correctly that after the conversion to XP I can still have the games and other software originally on the Linux eee pc and run them while using XP? If not, can I switch back and forth between running the gadget on Linux and XP?

 

hello from newbie

great forum you have, and you have helped me a lot in past times, in fact so much i never had to register to ask anything...until now

i am really very interested in EEE. there are 2 factors for me:
its cheap,
its small and practical and you can carry it everywhere.

im not a expert in pcs but my first thought is that EEE is made for windows XP.

well, i thought that until i read this thread and now i know that 800x480 is not very good for windows...

im also thinking about upgrading it a bit, warranty doesnt concern me at all,
so with what bits and parts would you upgrade EEE?

theres all sorts of upgrades on the net, starting adding more memory, thorugh bluetooth addons, and touch screen stuff.

what EEE is lacking (in my opinion) is a PCMCIA slot which would be great, because there is lot of products avaiable for it.

but im also thinking about larger screen, that is my main worry, can it be done somehow? thanks.

 

hey kevin,

thanks for this and sorry if this has already been posted here but i can't seem to get the start button tweak to work. the preferences file is where it should be, i do the tweak, exit and save but it doesn't stick. if i go back into the preferences file the value is still set to "0". i don't get any error message at all.

any ideas?

 

I haven't gotten mine yet but it should be here Mon or Tues. I found your rip apart very useful since I ordered the touch screen and want to get it in as soon as I receive my Eee. I did notice that you said to remover the ribbon for the keyboard but is there also something there that's attached to the touch pad or is it just a sensor? I guess I'll find out soon.
I purchased the solderless touchscreen, anybody put one of these in and did you have many difficulties?
My Eee is the 4GB Surf with a 16mb card and 2gb ram allready installed with windows XP
Do they all have the hub for the webcam even though the surf doesn't have a webcam? I read somewhere (after I ordered the solderless touchscreen) that some of them didn't have a plugin for the webcam.
Sorry about all the questions I got out of control typing this but any help wouild be appreciated.

 

I am new to LINUX. However, I've been following the instruction of the posters yet haven't been able to hack this thing. Very Frustrating.

However, I think I've been able to determine what the issue is: I can't add "Servers" to the ASUS.

I am connected to the internet. And I believe that I'm saving correctly. But when I "apt-get update" the server(s) I add aren't there.

In fact at the bottom of that screen where it should say "read 3 lines". When I enter the screen it says "read 2 lines", after I enter the text it doesn't say to read any lines.

Can someone help me, or direct me to some help?

Thank you very much.

 

Hi! New here.....

You can make do with a USB CD drive if you're installing Windows XP. First you need to copy all the visible files from the ASUS DVD to a hard drive on another machine (desktop?) which has a DVD reader. Then remove the ASUS Linux image file from the copy you've just made (it's called P701L.gz). Then burn the remainder to a CD (it will now fit). You then have a non-bootable copy of the DVD on a CD (which will still load automatically within XP), which is fine for installing the ASUS drivers after you have installed XP. Windows XP already comes on a CD - so no problem there either.

Other useful info......

Compress the SSD on the ASUS after you have installed XP. It makes a huge difference (see below). Install 2gig of RAM (now nice and cheap!). Turn the swap file off completely.

After installing XP Pro SP2, the drivers off the CD prepared as above, Office XP with FrontPage complete, Adobe Reader 8, PowerDVD, and a few other smallish programs, I still have 1.55G free on the SSD. This is not 'real' space, but Windows' calculation based on similar compression to what's already there. Total uncompressed program size would be 3.71G according to Windows.

I don't know whether there's a significant speed penalty due to compression. It seems pretty nippy to me, and I haven't yet used any of the extra (uncompressed) 4G on the SDHC card (below).

If you do need more space, add an SDHC card. I have a 4Gig one installed. It fits completely within the card slot, so is a tidy semi-permanent solution.

Windows will only compress NTFS - so an added card won't compress unless you format it as NTFS first.

Hope you all find this helpful! After doing all the above, you have a seriously functional but tiny laptop.

Something else totally daft, but interesting - if you install PenDriveLinux to a removable USB stick you can boot from that (hint: press ESC as the machine starts for the boot menu) - and the Compiz Cube works right away with no fiddling about. That did amaze me. PenDriveLinux is not otherwise very useful - you'll find problems due to the funny screen size with some programs, and of course the wifi won't work without some tweaking.

I know, I should get out more......

Rog.

 

A bit more info about Windows XP - this is general and not only relevant to the eee......

You can install XP to a drive other than the C: drive. However, if you're doing that in order to try for a dual-boot scenario, you'll have a problem. Even if you change the order of the boot drives in the BIOS, and even if you disable the normal C: drive also in the BIOS, the XP installer will find it. What always happens is that XP installs all its files where you tell it to, but then it installs a default boot sector to the primary hard drive (what would be the C: drive) and it does that whatever you do, unless you physically remove it or disconnect it, neither of which is possible on the eee. What happens then is that when you get the first boot into Windows you get a cryptic message 'ntldr not found', and that's your lot. What has happened is that the boot sector has attempted to load Windows from the C: drive as usual, and of course XP is not there. You still have your eee-Linux installation intact on that drive, but of course you can't boot into that either as the GRUB boot sector has been over-written.

It would be nice to be able to install XP to a plug-in card and then dual boot as required - in fact it would be VERY nice. However, it's not possible, so unless you had decided to ditch the Linux installation anyway, don't be tempted.

The only way back if you do this is to boot the eee DVD in a USB drive and re-install the Linux partition from there - which will return you to where you started.

It should be possible to copy a complete Windows installation to a removeable drive (on another machine) and then use GRUB on the eee to give you dual boot - but I'm not that curious. To give you some idea of how it might be approached, you'd need to boot the other machine from BartPE or some such (so that the native XP was not running) and then copy across the entire C: drive to a stick. You couldn't do this with XP itself running because open files would not be copied. You might then have problems with that pre-existing XP suddenly finding itself in strange hardware - especially the video driver. Now you know why I'm not that curious.....

Rog.

 

Great instructions, but ran into problem at the very end.
When you directed the user to type "apt-get update",
the system stated "couln't stat sources pkg, you may want to get update, some index files failed to down, you may want to get update". So, I then typed "apt-get update" and received the same message. Pls help as I'd love to add Gimp. BIG THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!!

 

One little glitch -- great instructions, but when I got to the section that states "apt-get update", my system stated "temp resolved xan.., some files failed to download, old files may be used", etc. I retyped "apt-get update" and the system stated again "some files..". What can I do please?

 

I must be one of the lucky ones, since i got both gimp and start menu to work. I still have a problem though. I'm very inexperienced with Linux and suprised I even managed this far.

Anyway, the problem is the start menu.
It 's there but it only shows firefox and gimp. There are a few menus like Programs and Toolbar but the submenus are empty. Are they supposed to? I also installed Xandros putty and it should show up where Gimp does, though it wont -____-

I think I'll just give up on this

 

Just install Ubuntu 8.04 man.

You'll be so much happier, although I would recommend you install it on an 8Gb or larger SD card.