ASUS Eee Update
May 2nd, 2008 by Don Ray
I received an email the other day asking about my thoughts on the ASUS Eee, now that I have had it a little while.
I really have only had it for a little over a month. However, I have enough time with it to say that it is performing as I expected and wanted it to perform.
It runs Linux with a very simple interface. I have chosen not to change from what the manufacturer installed to avoid any support anomalies. There are several applications I could remove, that I have no use for. but I haven’t taken the time to do it. I don’t know how much space I would regain, but I doubt if it would be much. There is a good user forum. This is where you will go for support, if you need it.
I have a 4 gig solid state hard drive built in and I added another 8 gig external solid state card for a total of 12 gig. Of the original 4 gig, I have 797 MB left. That is one reason to consider removing applications that I don’t need. I do have a small external 80 gig drive that plugs into the USB slot and if needed, it works well.
I have used both the LAN connection as well as the wireless connection. Both have worked well. It seems to be reasonably sensitive and if there is a network nearby, that is open, then it finds it. I have been able to print using my network connection (both LAN and wireless).
I have used the microphone and built-in camera with SKYPE and it performed well.
I am missing two applications that I would want to be able to post to my blog on the Internet from the road. The most important is a photo manager to scale and crop photos. GIMP might be overkill for such a small PC. I just haven’t taken the time to research it. The second program, might be a FTP program, but I can do without it.
The screen is only 7 inches, but I knew that up front. The keyboard is also small, but large enough for my two finger typing. One of the main reasons I purchased this PC was to get a small form factor. It is only two pounds and easily carried. It would fit in most women’s purses.
Another consideration was the price. Laptops tend to have a propensity for walking off and I would hate to lose a $1,500 PC. I wouldn’t want to lose a $400 PC either, but it would be less of a disaster.
So the question comes up, “Would I recommend it?” Well it depends. If you understand the limitations and they are not limitations for what you want to do, then “Yes”. Since it runs Linux, it is stable and not susceptible to viruses. It is well constructed and can take a reasonable amount of abuse. I have used it on battery for over 3 hours.
It boots up in about 25 seconds. It has all of the Open Office applications to handle those needs. Firefox is the provided browser. It uses Pidgin for its instant messenger. Pidgin will connects to 13 existing IM protocols and it will connect to them all at the same time in the same window.
All in all, it fills the bill for what I wanted, that being to be able to access the Internet when I travel and to be able to create word files.
Very ineresting –thinking about buying one ! How is it for printing
and scanning ??? Sure it will detect most digital cameras ! I have two linux boxes one with ubuntu and the other with Sled 10.0 (suse linux enterprize desktop ) Good idea with the external drives ! Should be great out in the field for photography and my art portfolio ! Thank you
PK
Hi Paul. Same problems with printers and scanners as any Linux. I have a HP Networked printer/scanner. I haven’t gotten scanning going over the net. Have never had a problem with the printer.
Have had no problem with it detecting the camera. I used to use SLED before I moved to UBUNTU,
Wow… Don Ray….
Don’t know if it was an artifact of that hack attack you suffered awhile back but I click on “Continue Reading” in this post and my computer went into opening “About Blank” windows, window after window. Couldn’t break the loop. Finally (because I know next to nothing of computers) did a POWER OFF / POWER ON and that seems to have cured it.
Coincidence? I sure don’t know but thought I would let you know FYI
Thanks
John
Hi John. Should not be anything to do with my past hack attack as I completely rebuilt the system and the hack code was removed. Unless you are saying that you came when the system was still infected, but it is unlikiely that you would have run fine from then until now.
While waiting to get my first Eee PC I stumbled into this article. According to eeeuser.com resources GIMP should run just alright on Eee PC: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/thegimp
And for ftp you can try gftp: http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?id=2561
This is also very useful eeeuser resource: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/list:othersoftware
Hi Sam, I need to get some time to do some maintence on my Eee. I am not sure if I want to put GIMP on it or not. Memory is the concern, not the performance. I also want to consider improving the OS. So much to do, so little time.