Thursday, November 6, 2008

Asus EEE Box B202 Linux

Bought this wonderful little computer from Newegg.ca about a week ago. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16883220004

The price seems to change with the exchange rate. I tried to find a Canadian supplier before but couldn't, they only carried the Windows version. Since I've been waiting about 8 years for SOMEONE big to sell a computer preloaded with Linux, I jumped on this thing with both feet.

Over the years I think I've paid the Windows tax probably 5 times only to install a different and usually better OS, at first OS/2 and then Linux. The last few years, it's been Ubuntu so when I read that the base system on the EEE Box was Xandros with KDE I was hesitant but went for it anyway cause I figured that this OS would have been customised to run correctly with the Asus hardware. I was never able to get any version of Linux to hibernate or sleep and until this problem is addressed Linux will never fly for laptops.

Anyway, I soon got tired of the Simple Interface and downloaded
advanced-desktop-eeepc_1.0-1_i386.deb
kicker_3.4.2.201-1_i386.deb
ksmserver_3.4.2.201-1_i386.deb

Then I did a Ctrl T to open up a command window and entered
sudo dpkg -i kicker_3.4.2.201-1_i386.deb then
sudo dpkg -i ksmserver_3.4.2.201-1_i386.deb
sudo dpkg -i advanced-desktop-eeepc_1.0-1_i386.deb

I got that info from the EEE PC user forums
http://forum.eeeuser.com

Then I went into the Logout screen of the Easy Desktop and a new button had apppeared that said Extended Desktop or something like that. Pressing it transported me to a more familiar desktop albeit a KDE one rather than Gnome but that's okay. I can live with that. I have installed the things I need and can Hibernate as well. I have to go back to the Easy desktop to Sleep but I don't use it anyway cause the ON/Off blue button is so bright that the flashing kept me awake anyway.

No comments:

Post a Comment