Asus Eee Pc Review 2008

So you're an early adopter and you've run out to buy yourself Asus's $400 Eee PC because it seemed like a great price for a fully functional 2 pound computer that's about the size of a typical hardcover book (and far smaller than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).

But the innovative easy to use interface might get old pretty quickly if you want to do more than surf the web and create letters, spreadsheets, and PowerPoint style presentations for your friends telling them how cool you are because you have an Eee PC while they don't.

Asus includes instructions for loading Windows XP onto the Eee PC, but it requires an external DVD drive, some drive compression, and you know, a copy of Windows XP. Curiously, Asus does not include any instructions for unlocking the built-in potential of Xandros Linux, the operating system that ships with the Eee PC. But as we mentioned in this week's Squadcast, it just takes a little bit of work to unlock this machine's potential.

If you've got a bit of Linux experience under your belt, it's pretty simple to add some programs, enable an advanced desktop, and tweak the Eee PC to your heart's content. But it turns out that even if you're a Linux noob, the learning curve isn't that steep. Here are some of the most useful Eee hacks/tweaks we've discovered in our first half week of playing with it. Thanks to the Eee User community for helping inspire our hacking.

Enabling Full Desktop Mode

Earlier this year, we heard that Asus would be releasing a Linux-based desktop that would compete with the OLPC XO computer. But the Eee PC would look like a computer for grownups, not a Fisher Price toy. And it would be available in both developed and developing nations. Oh yeah, and while Asus was slapping a new super-easy to use interface on the PC, there would also be a "Full Desktop" mode that would look more like Windows/your typical Linux distribution with the KDE desktop installed.

As it turns out, when we got our hands on the Eee PC, there was no full desktop mode enabled. Asus probably wanted to cut down on the customer service calls it would be getting if people could easily install and remove unsupported applications. So the Eee PC ships with "Easy Mode" enabled, and no clear way to set up the full desktop. The problem is that in Easy Mode, you have access to just a handful of software updates from Asus's server. There's no simple way to install GIMP, Audacity, or any other open source application you may have your heart set on.

We say no, easy way, because it turns out you can pull up a terminal in easy mode and use apt-get. And that's exactly what we're going to do in order to enable the full desktop. You could just use apt-get to install all the software your heart desires without ever enabling full desktop mode. It would certainly save you a few MB of precious memory (while the Eee PC has 4GB of solid state storage, only about 1.3GB is available, since the OS eats up a large chunk). But it's also more of a headache to do everything from the command line if you're used to graphical user interfaces.

1. Open up a terminal buy pressing Ctrl+Alt+T
2. Type "sudo bash" to gain root access (Be careful what you do with root access. The only reason we're using it now is so that you don't have to type sudo before each command. But you could easily mess up your machine if you perform every command as an administrator)
3. Type "apt-get update" to make sure you have access to the most up to date packages
4. Type "apt-get install kicker" and answer "y" when asked if you want to install
5. Type "apt-get install ksmserver" and answer "y" when asked if you want to install
6. Type exit to leave the root account
   
7. Type exit to close your terminal window

Now when you press the power button to turn off your computer, a new option will show up on the left that says "Full Desktop."

Press it and your Eee PC will reboot into Full Desktop mode, which should look something like this: