I’ve officially sworn off Windows. Vista was the final straw with all of it’s annoying pop up questions and flashing screens and… I could go on and on, but the end result is after dabbling in it for years I’ve fully switched over to Linux and specifically Ubuntu. So when I decided to buy the ultralight Asus eee pc 900 for my upcoming trip I knew that Ubuntu would be going on it first thing. After doing a little due diligence to see that other pioneers had traveled the same road and come back to tell the tale, I didn’t even hesitate to wipe the existing Xandros OS and give Ubuntu a go.

Why the Asus eee pc 900? Because it’s simply perfect for me! How can you go wrong with an under 2lb laptop that includes a built in webcam, wifi b/g, and a 9″ screen? If this was your only computer I could see the excitement of it’s small size wearing thin, but if you have a desktop or regular size laptop to use for more demanding tasks or when you need a larger screen, then this is the machine to get for those lighter tasks or for travel. The screen size is 800×480 which limits some of the information you can see on screen at one time, but it’s still possible to work on those large projects, if a little less efficiently.

I purchased mine from amazon.com as sold by tigerdirect for $549 and it was delivered within 4 days. While this is a bit off the subject, the packaging from Asus is superb. Just enough room to safely deliver all the components, mostly of recyclable cardboard and very little plastic.

I only have one complaint with the laptop… and that is the keyboard. I completely understand the reasons for it, but if you’ve got big hands and are a touch typist it will take some getting used to the small size. I feel like the Jolly Green Giant trying to do Swan Lake with his feet tied together.

On to the meat of the story… (actually getting Ubuntu installed and playing around with it)

While doing research about the best way to start this process I came across a wonderful resource that will walk you through step by step. The eeeuser.com site is the place to start!

Getting Ubuntu onto your Eee pc - http://wiki.eeeuser.com/installing_ubuntu_8.04

First I didn’t have an external optical drive available, so I went with the option to put the Ubuntu Live CD onto a USB stick and make it bootable. This whole step has been automated by the pendrivelinux.com folks who provide a fantastic bunch of scripts and tools. Simply follow the directions on this page and you’ll have a bootable Live CD USB stick in a couple of minutes. As a side effect of this process, I now have a bootable Ubuntu 8.04 USB to keep with me and easily boot off of any computer. Sorry for the geek porn picture over to the right You weren’t expecting the laptop on laptop action were you? But sometimes shock is the best way to illustrate a point.

The Ubuntu installation is standard and I didn’t run into any gotchas, but once Ubuntu is up and running you will have a couple of issues to address. Namely: the wifi won’t work, the laptop won’t properly shut down, most of the hot keys won’t be working, and some various other small issues. I’m so spoiled with wifi now, that the hardest part of all these tweaks was to go find a network cable and move over to the router to download the wifi drivers needed.

Here is a list of tweaks to get things working just right - http://wiki.eeeuser.com/getting_ubuntu_8.04_to_work_perfectly

UPDATE: Found the webcam wasn’t working properly. I since located a forum post that fixed it here. Here are the steps:
1. sudo aptitude install subversion
2. svn co svn://svn.berlios.de/linux-uvc/linux-uvc/trunk linux-uvc
3. cd linux-uvc
4. sudo make
5. sudo make install
6. sudo modprobe -r uvcvideo
7. sudo mv /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/ubuntu/media/usbvideo/uvcvideo.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/ubuntu/media/usbvideo/uvcvideo.ko.original
8. sudo cp uvcvideo.ko /lib/modules/$(uname -r)/ubuntu/media/usbvideo/uvcvideo.ko
9. sudo modprobe uvcvideo

Now I have the ultralight Asus eee pc 900 running Ubuntu perfectly. No sacrifices, no issues!! What could be better?

For the inquiring minds, the boot time on this little baby with a full copy of Ubuntu installed is about 50 seconds. Not blazing, and I’m sure with a little evaluation I could find a way to make it faster, but after configuring it to suspend when the lid is closed I just don’t care all that much. You simply close the lid and it suspends in maybe 5 seconds, then open it up and hit a key or the power button and you’re back in business in another 5 seconds. And battery life is great. With wifi on 3 hours, off 4 hours. Of course this was baseline testing not playing a video.

And working on the system doesn’t feel like you’re sacrificing anything. Apps come up quickly and smoothly. Large videos play with no issues, and image manipulation is quick. Below is a video I created just showing how quick everything moves.

Video of working in Ubuntu - Most of it is obvious, but I’d like to point out that the Battlestar Galactica clip is in HDTV and running from an external SD card. Also to notice the new youtube plugin for Totem. It’s pretty slick to be able to search and play right from your video player.

In conclusion, I just love this combination as I’m sure you’ve gathered from my ravings above. I’ll soon be putting it through it’s paces on a much more regular basis while I’m on the road on my journey. I’ll only have this computer with me to satisfy my geeky needs, and I’m sure I’ll really find out what my tollerance is for the ultra-small. Hopefully Starbucks has their free wifi rolled out throughout the country as that will be my main way of connecting…