anyone else here play with the EEEPC?

[MrBuzz]

I haven't been keeping up with this thread...but it you like "time wasters" I found a couple good ones for various Linux distros.
Crack Attack...described as like Battle Tetris...really easy to play and fun
and my new favorite...
Pipewalker...it's an open source version of NetWalk, a puzzle game where you try to flip network connections on a grid to connect computers.
Not sure if either of these are in the eeePC repository but I think both are available as tar.gz
My Ubuntu installation is giving me fits again. For some reason the wifi card which installed and worked right out of the box...just stopped working! At least I still have my cellphone for data.
I am enjoying working with Ubuntu Linux as my primary OS though...and learning more all the time. I still have XP on that notebook and seem to have to go back to that a couple times each day for simple things that Windows just does well and easily.

[Mike B]

Crack Attack is not a Gnome game and is not a KDE game, so it doesn't come bundled with them. You have to specifically search for it. I have it on all my other computers, but not on the EEE PC. I use that one to mostly surf the Net.

I play Crack Attack every day. My highest score is in the 900's and I have only gotten that far once. Mostly I am in the 300's to 600's. Love that game.

Mike
Hayden Lake, ID

[MrBuzz]

Hey Mike B...
I really like your Blog...lots of very interesting links out there. Did you and I communicate about TD's a couple of years ago? It was before I was a member of this forum I think. I think I did a google search and found your website and emailed you a couple of years ago about your teardrop.
Just checking...like I said a lot of stuff on your blog sounded familiar.
MrBuzz

[Gaelen]

So, a couple days ago, my eeePC900 (Linux) had a spell. Could open websites and forum pages, and read and write posts--but couldn't send them. I thought on the first forum that the website was having an issue, but it persisted across several different sites. I could write and send mail from my yahoo! account, and write/save an openOffice doc, but nto do anything except read a website. Late at night--and I've learned to never troubleshoot computer issues when I should be sleeping! -- so closed it up and left it for the next morning.

The next morning, on boot up, it hung--and when I hit the troubleshooting F key, the message was that the 16GB slave drive had failed to bootup, permission to continue? I stopped, pulled the battery, counted to 20 for luck, reinserted the battery and rebooted, and it saw the drive (an old Palm Pilot trick...) However, that was the last time my eeePC has 'seen' the 16GB drive.

I've tried BIOS updates, rebooting, and am going to try a system restore. However, since I've only had it 3 weeks, I'm probably going to call ASUS on Monday for an RMA and get an in-warranty repair. I've done nothing to tweak this machine except work on it as it came out of the box for 2-4 hours a day--haven't even had time to convert it to advanced mode. But something just three weeks out of the box shouldn't have an SSD failure...IMNSHO.

Also--much as I REALLY LIKE the machine (which, BTW, did come with Crack Attack pre-installed)--I am a little ticked that the $100 rebates ASUS just issued for the 900s is specifically limited to those purchased from 7/8 through 7/31...I bought mine on 6/30 just about a week before the cutoff, from an authorized distributor. But when I called ASUS they said, 'sorry, no rebate for you.' Way to build a customer base.

I do love the IT industry--ah, the joys of being an early adopter.

[MrBuzz]

G-
Sorry to hear about the SD drive problem. Did you get any farther along with it today? I can't believe it would have to be sent back...it's all solid-state...there are no moving parts to fail!
Post what you find out...
MrBuzz

[mikeschn]

Yea, it does sound like you got a bad one. SSD should last way longer than that...

Mike...

[tbeau]

I Have been looking at the MTI wind. It has a traditional sata hard drive that is real easy to upgrade later. Any ideas about upgrades to hard drive on the asus?

[MrBuzz]

I have been kind of holding out until I see that MSI Wind too. The pre-release reviews have been very good for that unit. The larger keyboard would be nice along with the 10" screen.
But now with the $100 off the eeePC900 I might be tempted to jump on one of those! Even with the cramped keyboard I really like that smaller form factor.

[mikeschn]

I looked at the HP 2133 I think it was. But once I read the reviews, I opted for the EEEPC.



But the larger HP keyboard would have been nice!

Mike...

[Geron]

I looked at the HP 2133 I think it was. But once I read the reviews, I opted for the EEEPC.

But the larger HP keyboard would have been nice!

Mike...

That's my only complaint -- but between running the wife oof the desktop (spider solitaire) and the laptop, the Eee is usually my goto computer now for web and email.

g

[mikeschn]

When I can, I plug in a full sized USB keyboard. But what's amazing is that my Nec MobilePro 900C with it's near full sized keyboard is easier to type on than the EEE PC. Asus could learn from that...



But there are no new computers on my immediate horizon.

Mike...

[Gaelen]

Well, SSD or not, apparently the 16GB slaves do have a history of disappearing. Usually it happens a bit further down the road than three weeks, and heat is assumed to be part of the culprit, but no real definitive consensus. Sometimes they can be slapped into being 'seen' again by a BIOS update and/or a system restore, if they've just disappeared. But in my case, since I've tried both and still get a definite on-boot failure message, the prevailing opinions from the eeePC forum specialists is that mine has failed. Based on its young age, I'm going to drop this issue in ASUS's repair lap and let them fix it back to the specs I bought a month ago.

While the machine still runs (and I'm still using it, to see if anything else comes up), all of the personal data (files, bookmarks, etc.) is stored in \user on the larger slave drive. I didn't have much on it but bookmarks, since I'd only saved a few test files. Still, that drive needs to be usable, or I'm basically going to be working everything off of SD cards and USB pen drives. I'm going to get that RMA based on ASUS's warranty against part failure under normal use. What I have now is essentially the 4GB model ASUS was selling as the 701, but with the 900's larger screen. Not ideal, certainly not what I paid extra for.

The thing hasn't been modified in any way, or experienced anything I wouldn't do to any other laptop in its first three weeks of use. In some cases, it's experienced less machine fatigue, since I was having so much fun just being productive with it and not really doing much tinkering behind the scenes.

Careful of the 'deals' out there, too...apparently ASUS has decided to issue a version some have dubbed the 900A, which is the same box as the 900 machine, but which only has the 16GB drive. This drive is slower than the 4GB flash drive which does most of the read-writing and which holds the OS and the root directory in the Linux versions and the WinXP OS in that version. The 900As are offering the same capacities in either WinXP or Linux as the original 900s had in their secondary drives...and when opened up, the faster 4GB SSD is gone and either a 16GB or 12GB SSD is soldered in its place (the Win XP machines are 12GB.)

I suppose you could modify that if you were handy with a soldering iron and liked to work in miniature, tight spaces...but that mod would invalidate your warranty. And while I do some of that kind of work, it's not the stuff I'd like to do to a brand new machine that was still on warranty. I paid for certain specs, and that's what I want to work.

Don't get me wrong--I still love the thing. And I didn't want to wait for the Wind, or go the HP route, either. The point was small, under a KG, with enough horsepower to do the jobs I need to do on the road--and it does that really well. But having that larger slave drive as onboard extra space was one of the reasons I went with the Linux 900 instead of XP (the others were the 900's screen size and the idea of playing with Linux again.) And I went eeePC because they had a track record with the earlier models, ASUS usually makes reliable machines, and most of the other small models with keyboards were just vaporware when I was looking, or way more than I wanted to spend.

So, if they can fix it or replace it, I'll be happy. If not, I'll be taking my money elsewhere and toughing it out with the too-heavy 12 inch HP until then.

[Geron]

Gaelen,

I know this is NOT your problem but I lost the SDD when I installed XP. In my ignorance i failed to format the drive. I FINALLY figured it out. I have since gone back to Linux and no problems since. mine has often run 24 hrs at a time. Like I said, I know this is not your problem. Yours almost has to be hardware.

Hate to hear that the SSD's have a history of disappearing.
Oh well still love this little thing.
g

[MrBuzz]

Has anyone experimented with the eee-version of ubuntu? There are several things I like about Ubuntu and Debian that I would like to maintain if I bought an eeePC.
This has been a rough couple of weeks for me...there have been so many opportunities to use a mini-notebook while traveling. My 15.4 Sony is just too huge for how I use a notebook right now. My Nokia N800 works great...I can deal with the small screen but not the klugey stylus input...they should study whatever Palm used to do for handwriting recognition!
Having the full-size (aspect ratio) screen is a big plus for the 900 over the 7" models. But honestly other than that I think I would buy one of those 4GB 7" models if they dropped the price to around $200.
Not sure how I would get along with the keyboard, I haven't laid hands on one yet...not even seen one in the flesh.
Dell keeps rattling swords about coming out with an inexpensive netbook. Supposed to be $300 and available in August. Also Laptop Magazine has mentioned a few other models from other manufactures/distributors.
It will be fun to see what the netbook landscape looks like by time the Christmas shopping season is in full swing.

[Mike B]

Has anyone experimented with the eee-version of ubuntu? There are several things I like about Ubuntu and Debian that I would like to maintain if I bought an eeePC.

I have the 7" model. When I first got it, I installed standard Ubuntu 8.04 on it and did some configuration changes to keep it from accessing the flash drive too much, and to allow it to be useful on the small screen.

I discovered that many of the dialogs that popped up were still their original size and did not fit on the screen. There was a work-around for that, but it was a pain to hold down the Alt key and drag the dialog around to see it all. So I reinstalled Xandros on it and installed the standard menu system. I am much happier now.

I have been meaning to pick up the Ubuntu version that was done specifically for the EEE PC, but I've been too busy to do that.

The keyboard is a bit small. And I have never liked touchpads, not since I got a case of carpal tunnel from using one I helped develop at Key Tronic. There are solutions to both those problems. They are called USB keyboard and USB mouse. You can even get a USB keyboard that is flexible and rolls up, like the piano in 'Big'. I had one of those, but it broke. I'd really like another one. Go to http://www.geeks.com/ and search for 'flexible keyboard' to see what I'm talking about.

I like my little EEE PC, but I only use it when I'm traveling or when I go to the deli for lunch (free wireless).

Mike
Hayden Lake, ID