The Eee, however it is pronounced(I sometimes say “E e e” and other times I say “triple e PC”), is a great little portable computer for the price. It offers many of the features that you would get from a highend desktop at a fraction of the cost. Probably the best feature of the device is it’s “hackability”
Not everyone who buys an Eee will be hacking it. The term “hack” is used very loosely here. All that this refers to is using the device in a way it wasn’t originally intended. This is hard to accomplish with this laptop only because it was originally built with many intended uses. Even hacking it could be considered one of it’s originally intended uses.
There are at least two operating systems available for the Eee. Windows XP Home edition runs fairly well on them, but for best performance and the best ability to customize the computer, the Linux version is recommended. Plus the Linux version should be a little cheaper than the XP version. It should also be noted that the Linux version would pretty much remove the need for such things as antivirus software or disk defrag.
So if one decides on the Linux version, there are a few things that can be done right out of the box to make it better. First and foremost, install Ubuntu-Eee(now called Easy Peasy) on it. This is very simple believe it or not. There are plenty of how-to’s available on the net for this, but the simple rundown is to grab an SD card, format it FAT32, download the Easy Peasy, load it onto the SD card, boot to it, and install.
That is a very brief overview of the steps, but it gets the point across. There are a few other tips to remember about installing a different version/distribution of Linux on the Eee. Since it uses a solid state drive(SSD), there are steps everyone should take to assure that the drive lasts it’s full potential. SSDs have a limited lifespan. On average it is possible to write the entire storage capacity 10,000 times before the drive goes bad. Under normal operating conditions, this would amount to roughly 3 years of use. To minimize the number of writes to the drive, one should turn off the swap file, turn off logging, use ext2 instead of a journaled filesystem, and mount the filesystems “noatime”.
The beautiful thing about the Eee, however is that it can boot to SD cards and USB devices. To reduce the wear and tear on the built-in SSD, it would make more sense to just install the Operating Systems onto the SD cards. The built-in SSD could then be used for storage of important documents if needed. This also allows for many operating systems to be used. If one wanted to test the security of their wireless network, they could use an SD card with BackTrack Linux. It should even be possible with enough hackery to get XP, Vista, or upcoming Windows 7 running from an SD card as well.
If two people wanted to share the Eee, they would only need to carry their own SD card. This could actually be a great idea for libraries, schools, and other businesses who wish to allow others to use their computer systems privately. SD cards are cheap too.
These are only a few of the things that can be done with the Eee. Grab one today and start experimenting with it.
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