Since January 2008 I proudly own a ASUS eeePC 4G (black)!
The eeePC is a 300 Euro laptop with a weight of less than 1kg. The hardware spec is on the low end, but the speed is enough for daily work.

The following paragraphs describe my setup of this great machine and also answer some general questions. I organize this page a bit like a FAQ since I think you (the reader) will probably read this while searching for concrete solutions.

Well - the keyboard is pretty small. I got used to it after some hours of config work - others complain about this. The main disadvantage for me is the SSD (harddisk) of 4GB, which is used by app. 1.5GB by the system. Thus I needed a SD Card of 16 GB (70 Euro) for my personal data like music. The screen is fine for me, but some windows need to be shifted (holding Alt you can drag around).
Overall it is the most impressive machine I've ever seen!

The boot time in advanced desktop mode with the original Xandros is about 30sec. eeeXubuntu needs about 50sec including Desktop startup as you can see here. This is the only reason. Once fastinit is reimplemented for some Ubuntu clone (thus booting is faster), I definetly will change.

Yes - thats an issue! Xandros offers an old KDE version, which makes it impossible to install non-shipped KDE apps or current versions of these programs. Luckily all my favorit apps are there - more or less. I miss Krusader (file manager) and Kopete (IM). But pidgin (the shipped IM application) is handable.

Most people might know the basic steps like enabling the advanced mode deslktop etc. All this is really good documented here and here.
From the menioted repoitories I installed some applications:

traceroute cups-pdf xmms vpnc libdvdcss2 xmame-x zim 
apt-show-versions apt-file latex

In the reminder of this document I will focus on additional points to this guide.

Since I bought my eeePC in Germany, the system is configured to be German. Changing the whole system is quite easy, just reconfgure loales:

%> dpkg-reconfigure locales

As mentioned here, some people expect trouble while connecting to an WPA encrypted wireless network.
Just disable set "auto" to "infrastructure" for the network option for this network.

Power management for the Screen should be enabled by accessing the KDE power config tool like described here.

These are more software repositories one could add:

deb http://ftp.linux.hr/asuseee/xandros/ binary/
deb-src http://ftp.linux.hr/asuseee/xandros/ source/

Keep in mind that this is unofficial and you have to trust the repository maintainers! I installed

keepassx nmap aircrack-ng yakuake

from this

While logging out you could check a box for saving your current session. This ONLY works for the (normally unused) logout option, neither reboot or shutdown!
Beside this, every session-save adds another battery-monitor to the system tray. One could remove ALL these instances of the started application by editing

.kde/share/config/ksmserverrc of user's homedirectory.

Never ever try this! I read in some forum posts and tried myself: You will definetly end up in recovering the system!
I got managed to boot with another user name, but X would only start from console...

If you plan to extend the 4GB SDD of the eeePC by a removeable medium like a SD Card, you might want to tweak the operating system to mount it on a specific mountpoint - not using the default one including a popup. Here is a nice description at eeeuser.com Wiki

For quick starting a command without starting a xterm or yakuake, I could really recommend Mercury. This small up is easy to setup (there is no package currently) and use! I use it also on my other machines.

Contact me! I would be proud to help you with further information.

• http://forum.eeeuser.com
• http://asuseeehacks.blogspot.com/
• http://www.eee-pc.de (german)