Ubuntu Netbook Remix (Jaunty)on EeeTop PC

[charcaroth]

I recently purchased an Asus EeeTop PC for my wife's birthday. It has an unusual form factor best described as a 16:10 touchscreen PC with a leaning stand that can have keyboard and mouse attachments or a touchscreen interface. (see http://usa.asus.com/products.aspx?l1=24&l2=169 ) From what I can tell, the current model, the ET1602 has been out in Europe for a few months, but just got released last week (mid-April 2009) in the States. It comes ONLY with Windows XP loaded and has an overlay interface called "easy mode" that can't easily be modified or customized. Without this easy mode and the touchscreen controls built into their proprietary version of XP Home, the machine would function pretty much like a laptop. My wife, who's used Ubuntu Hardy on her Compaq laptop since I installed it just after release, has issued strict orders that I am not to "screw up, tweak, configure, or anything else" her EeeTop that she's using in the kitchen to pull up recipes, monitor Facebook, instant message, and the like. At least not until I can prove to her that it would work ;-)

I'd like to put the Ubuntu Jaunty netbook remix on there because there are LOTS of Asus proprietary TSRs that run on boot and slow down the XP load as well as occasionally making it unstable. To me, the Ubuntu community is my best hope for getting a Linux install with touchscreen support and many of the functions she'll use in a way that will approximate and improve upon the Asus load of XP. The machine has an Atom processor, a gig of RAM, a 160 gb HDD, 6 USB 2.0 ports, 1/8" audio lines in and out, a microphone and webcam, and a SD/MS/MMC card reader. It's no slouch, but it's proprietary enough that I think it'll need a tweaked load of Ubuntu. I've looked on the eeebuntu forums, but no one seems to have any experience dealing with the EeeTop in particular and their forums are MUCH less populated than this one. I have evidence that it will run, as I have seen this video on Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLzmCU4rjf4 but not speaking Italian, I have little hope of getting help from that source. Can others share their experiences with this device and the Jaunty Netbook remix, which I believe to be the optimal OS for this device? Thanks in advance for your support.

[kurdo_kolene]

I think you should sacrifice a 2gb usb stick and follow the instructions on the Ubuntu Netbook Remix download page on getting the UNR USB image to boot from the stick and then you can try it in live mode and test everything that you need to be working. That way you'll know waht works, what doesn't and you'll be able to provide feed back to the developers which will help them make UNR better for you and all of us who have or are going to buy the EEEtop.
Regards

[kat_ams]

Do a search here in the forums for
ASUS ET1602

I put in two posts the instructions on how to get the touchscreen and display working

and in the other post how to upgrade the ram to 2GB

instructions are in these two threads.

Eee Top ET1602: blank screen in X
Ubuntu on Asus Eee Top ET1602?

[charcaroth]

Thanks, kat_ams. Now that there's established precedent, perhaps my wife will let me try it out on her EeeTop, model ET1602. Everything seemed to work, as I recall, except touchscreen functionality in the live version of Ubuntu netbook remix (9.04) when I tried booting from a USB drive, though I appreciate the input to get the rest working and updated. Your post seems very thorough and well researched.

I have a friend with an MSI Windtop (same processor and motherboard chipset as the EeeTop) who may well sacrifice the lousy load of Vista Home Basic in order to load the Ubuntu Netbook Remix now that the touchscreen interface issue has been resolved. I'm pushing him to use the Windtop (with an 18+" LCD panel, 1 gb DDR RAM, and a DVD-RW to differentiate it from the EeeTop) as a jukebox of sorts to stream music files (and potentially video) from a NAS. I've had stuttering, though, using the wireless card on the Eeetop when streaming from my own network so I can't imagine that the wireless performance in Ubuntu would be much better. The WindTop has a different wireless card and seems to stream more smoothly (at least in *******), so I'm hopeful that Ubuntu will work at least as well. He has hopes of using it as an all-around video and audio streaming PC for the kitchen, which is the secondary way my wife uses her EeeTop (after email, FB, and general web browsing). I should mention the EeeTop worked great when connected to the wired network in the house (10/100/1000 with a QNAP NAS) for all above mentioned purposes, but my wife has since moved it to the island counter in my kitchen, which has no Ethernet port. I'm considering moving it back near the kitchen Ethernet port and mounting it with a cantilever mount, but with a tile backsplash to drill through, it'll likely be more trouble than it's worth.