How is the Linux that comes with the EEE?

[NintendoTogepi]

What distro is it? Ubuntu? Puppy Linux? OpenSUSE?

[aysiu]

It's Xandros, and it's terrible.

Read What's so bad about the Eee PC Xandros anyway? (http://www.psychocats.net/ubuntucat/whats-so-bad-about-the-eee-pc-xandros-anyway/) for more details.

[binbash]

xandros sucks

[richg]

I have the Asus EEE 4G wireless laptop which by most standards is ancient.. Maybe a year old. It comes with an Xandros OS. which is transparent. NOT a primary PC, only for light weight traveling. It works for me. There are newer models.
Link to EEE PC Forums. You will get a lot of examples, not opinons from those who do not use them.
http://forum.eeeuser.com/

If you like to break and fix the OS, then look elsewhere.

Rich

[NintendoTogepi]

Well it doesn't sound perfect, but I really don't need to customize the EEE PC that much, I don't feel a need to completely strip the OS and then build it back up :D

How big is the distro? There's this great deal on an EEE PC for 200 dollars, but it is only 4GB hard drive....

[aysiu]

Well, given that it takes up so much space, you may actually feel the need to completely strip the OS and build it back up again.

Not only does it take up a lot of space on a 4 GB drive, but it uses something called unionfs to store a backup partition so you can easily restore the original factory settings should you accidentally screw up your installation.

And if you update any of your applications, the updates will took up additional space on your regular partition, since the backup partition is mounted as read-only.

I don't have Xandros in front of me, but I have a 4 GB Eee, and I seem to recall it having about 400 MB of free space when I got it.

[uberdonkey5]

Well, given that it takes up so much space, you may actually feel the need to completely strip the OS and build it back up again.

Not only does it take up a lot of space on a 4 GB drive, but it uses something called unionfs to store a backup partition so you can easily restore the original factory settings should you accidentally screw up your installation.

And if you update any of your applications, the updates will took up additional space on your regular partition, since the backup partition is mounted as read-only.

I don't have Xandros in front of me, but I have a 4 GB Eee, and I seem to recall it having about 400 MB of free space when I got it.

These are fair points, but I kept Xandros for the same reasons... I have ubuntu on my regular laptop and my eeepc is basically just for some open office work and internet applications. I store nothing on the 4GB internal drive, everything is on the 4GB SD card I have installed. Thus, when I come off a plane or from my travels I can slip the SD card into my laptop and backup or copy everything.

There are no problems that I have discovered with Xandros functionality, if you want to leave it as it is (open-office, wireless, lan, webcam etc etc all is set up perfectly). However updates and new software is poorly supported by Xandros. If you want to tailor it to run some special software (esp. if it is large software) may be a problem. Also, things like synaptic are there, but not evident. You need ctrl,alt+t to access terminal and type 'synaptic'. However it makes for a really user friendly experience. You can get a KDE style desktop by going to advanced mode (requires just a tiny bit of extra software which is easy to install), but I don't see the point, because it is faster navigating the menus as it is.

Xandros boots up (pressing on to working away on something) in 30 secs (i.e. not the time from the boot up log, but actual real time to get working), and boots down very quickly. Problem with installing other distros like eeexubuntu are slower boot-up times, and problems that need tweaking (heard wireless had problem in past, but not now). Of course, if you want ubuntu, thats cool, but the size of the keyboard and screen isnot suitable for serious work, so why use it like a serious laptop... its a pocket travel netbook).

Also, keeping my data in SD card means that if something goes wrong, I remove my SD card (back up in my computer) and just reset the system with the touch of a button. ROBUST is the word.

So... depends what you are gonna use it for! For me I love Xandros on the eeepc but I'd never use it on my laptop.

[NintendoTogepi]

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