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View Full Version : Asus up coming laptops might have linux pre installed?



silent1643
June 7th, 2007, 01:21 PM
this quote from engadget about the up coming cheap laptops for undre $200 might have linux pre-installed? Do we know any more about this? and will ubuntu get a hand in any of these small value pc's? I would love to have one just for wifi use.
http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.engadget.com/media/2007/06/asus-eee-pc-hands-on.jpg
"Perhaps most interestingly, Asus' product manger told them that while Windows XP has been successfully tested with the device, the final product will likely come with only Linux pre-installed, with XP driver support thrown in for good measure. What's more, Asus also said that the mini-laptop could eventually pack as much as 32GB of SSD storage, and even hinted at the possibility of either an optional built-in 3G module or a separate dongle. Asus also reiterated that seemingly too good to be true $200 starting price, adding that a version for "English speaking countries" could be available "as early as August this year."
source (http://www.engadget.com/2007/06/06/engadget-chinese-gets-its-hands-on-asus-eee-pc-701/)

ArieT
June 7th, 2007, 02:53 PM
and will ubuntu get a hand in any of these small value pc's?
No. Xandros will.

BarfBag
June 7th, 2007, 03:12 PM
No. Xandros will.

Do you have a source?

silent1643
June 7th, 2007, 07:58 PM
guess not :^o

jgrabham
June 7th, 2007, 08:01 PM
Wow, if thats true, and they'll be on sale in the UK, I might buy one!

jgrabham
June 7th, 2007, 08:03 PM
Is it me or does it not seem to have a CD drive!!

silent1643
June 7th, 2007, 08:06 PM
Is it me or does it not seem to have a CD drive!!

hmm maybe not, might account for the cost, but still i would buy one.... im sure it has proper inputs for usb drives etc..

here is another cheap-o laptop, but this one i believe is built for students, as in one laptop per student to cost around 150.
link (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/10/video-hands-on-with-olpc/)

jgrabham
June 7th, 2007, 08:09 PM
hmm maybe not, might account for the cost, but still i would buy one.... im sure it has proper inputs for usb drives etc..

here is another cheap-o laptop, but this one i believe is built for students, as in one laptop per student to cost around 150.
link (http://www.engadget.com/2007/01/10/video-hands-on-with-olpc/)

For those of us who want a laptop with green horns

smoker
June 7th, 2007, 09:28 PM
The notebook uses a custom-written Linux operating system, much like the OLPC, though unlike the OLPC, Asus has chosen a more conventional interface. The desktop looked fairly similar to Windows and we saw Firefox running on one 3ePC...
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/114773/asus-stuns-computex-with-100-laptop.html#

steeleyuk
June 7th, 2007, 09:37 PM
For those of us who want a laptop with green horns

Well you can't have a laptop running Linux with red horns. You know Microsoft = Devil, Devil = Microsoft ;)

snoop
June 7th, 2007, 09:53 PM
That thing looks really awesome, I would love to have that to take to class and write notes.

reclusivemonkey
June 7th, 2007, 11:29 PM
Wow. If this isn't actually vapourware and its got Wifi I'd buy on in a second. Strip out whatever they've put on it and just have a barebones CLI install. Who needs 2Gb and 512 RAM?! Imagine the battery life you'd get out of it...

tippit78
June 8th, 2007, 09:14 AM
That's the one bad thing about it, its battery life is only about three hours. I haven't seen if they'll offer extra batteries, though I imagine they will. There's also going to be a version with a ten inch screen next year.

I'll probably get a 4GB one and just plugin my iPod when I want music. Other than that, I think this would do everything I want. I'm kinda surprised when I see people who buy the nicest, sleekest, top of the line laptops they can afford, and then use them to write letters and surf the net. This makes soooo much more sense.

igknighted
June 8th, 2007, 08:33 PM
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=7317

'N' wifi, solid state drive, damn... I will be buying one of these as I am in the market for a cheap laptop for school come this fall (I commute an hour and spend all day there... I need my own PC with me, but I have a very powerful desktop, so no need for another really powerful PC). I think this is awesome, words cannot describe my enthusiasm.

snoop
June 9th, 2007, 03:31 AM
http://www.asus.com/news_show.aspx?id=7317

'N' wifi, solid state drive, damn... I will be buying one of these as I am in the market for a cheap laptop for school come this fall (I commute an hour and spend all day there... I need my own PC with me, but I have a very powerful desktop, so no need for another really powerful PC). I think this is awesome, words cannot describe my enthusiasm.

The specs on the webpage linked to tells of b/g wifi. Its still awesome though.

tippit78
June 10th, 2007, 09:02 AM
Since this thing doesn't have a cd drive, anyone know how you'd go about installing Ubuntu (or anything else, for that matter) on it? I'm afraid I haven't got a clue, though I'm guessing it's possible.

reclusivemonkey
June 10th, 2007, 09:14 AM
Since this thing doesn't have a cd drive, anyone know how you'd go about installing Ubuntu (or anything else, for that matter) on it? I'm afraid I haven't got a clue, though I'm guessing it's possible.

I'm hoping there will be a "Boot from USB" supported in the BIOS. You could then do a net install. Also, you could get a USB CD/DVD drive.

mips
June 10th, 2007, 01:51 PM
Since this thing doesn't have a cd drive, anyone know how you'd go about installing Ubuntu (or anything else, for that matter) on it? I'm afraid I haven't got a clue, though I'm guessing it's possible.

It uses solid state flash so you will boot of that. Hopefully you will have secondary boot options like usb.

smoker
June 10th, 2007, 04:12 PM
here's a video for anyone wanting a close look!
http://event.asus.com/eeepc/

silent1643
June 11th, 2007, 03:44 PM
here's a video for anyone wanting a close look!
http://event.asus.com/eeepc/

nice thanks

mips
June 11th, 2007, 04:01 PM
Here are some photos & specs;

http://chinese.engadget.com/photos/computex-2007-asus-eee-pc-701/
http://www.hardwarezone.com/news/view.php?id=7470&cid=9

Edit:
Rumour has it it might use a Intel A100 "McCaslin" cpu.

tippit78
June 11th, 2007, 09:18 PM
So what would you all put on this thing? I'm thinking ratpoison myself, with firefox and thunderbird. Set up a music server at home that I can access over the internet? Hmmm...

I want to play with this thing so bad.

reclusivemonkey
June 11th, 2007, 10:11 PM
So what would you all put on this thing? I'm thinking ratpoison myself, with firefox and thunderbird. Set up a music server at home that I can access over the internet? Hmmm...

I want to play with this thing so bad.

First thing I would try is an X-less Slack; mutt, slrn, lynx/links, remind and the standard Unix toolkit would be more than enough for me.

lamalex
June 11th, 2007, 10:23 PM
Well you can't have a laptop running Linux with red horns. You know Microsoft = Devil, Devil = Microsoft ;)

Red horns? You're thinking of BSD.

sc3252
June 14th, 2007, 06:40 AM
wow, I am so excited to get one of these. I am in college right now and havent worked for about a year and one half making this the only afforable laptop(an actual laptop from what i have read, unlike those hot apple/pc's you cant hold) I can buy. I am so excited because now I will be able to take notes in class(my hand writing is so horrible i cant even read it) and be able to play emulated snes, nes and just about any other type of emulated game.:popcorn: