New eeePC 1000 and having hell already.

[schotty]

I bought the linux 40GB ssd one to credit linux. But of course I want to expand on what it can do, so I whipped out my trusty Fedora 10 disc and installed that on it. This is where it all begins.

Its slow. Really slow. Anything seems latent, but although I initially thought it was the disk, I got a rather decent hdparm bench. So is this a graphics issue? Is the intel driver that bad? I have compiz off for now.

Wireless is fucked. The driver once I got it to load will see my wifi spots, but wont take my password. Any tips here?

Curious if any other have these two problems with their linux of choice? I tried Ubuntu 8.10 and it was even worse off. I had zero chance of getting anything working cleanly. If its gonna require alot of fidgeting cool -- just need to know what fidgeting. I am thinking that the wifi may need to just be recompiled from source. But I figured before screwing shit up, I would politely ask if its a "me" thing

Thanks much,
Andrew.

[dpkgregor]

What are the specs of your Eee?

Ubuntu and Fedora aren't really as fast and slick as people think.

Maybe try Slackware or Arch if you have the time?

[eddie]

There are several versions of linux optimized for the eee and depending on what processor you have there are additional variants. I grew up on Rh but tend to use debian for lower end machines. Before the eee is name the culprit, I would do a bit more research. I run debian on 166mhz p1 machines without a hitch. You also may want to consider a larger swap space. There are tweaks available to enhance linux even for rh to be a bit more frisky.

[dpkgregor]

I run debian on 166mhz p1 machines without a hitch.

Would love to hear more about your setups

Sorry for being off topic

[schotty]

the specs,

Atom 1.6Ghz
1GB Ram soon (when the stick arrives) to be upgraded to 2GB

Ralink 2860 wifi


As for my issues I do have a progress report. I compiled the drivers by hand and got the same results as the precompiled rpmfusion provided ones. Scratching my head, I unsheathed the most awesome weapon on the planet -- the Google. The Google replied with comments that others had weird issues of routers not liking their laptops running linux. I pondered this briefly and decided to log into my 3Com and see what I had. I changed the mixed b/g mode to pure g and rebooted. Voila. That fixed it. Apparently my driver sucks balls and is that finnicky.

Still have no idea why my 2 desktops are fast as snot (even weaker ones than my eee) and this eee is slow with regards to gnome, rpm, and soforth. That is my current battle it appears.

Thanks again Dann.

[schotty]

There are several versions of linux optimized for the eee and depending on what processor you have there are additional variants. I grew up on Rh but tend to use debian for lower end machines. Before the eee is name the culprit, I would do a bit more research. I run debian on 166mhz p1 machines without a hitch. You also may want to consider a larger swap space. There are tweaks available to enhance linux even for rh to be a bit more frisky.

I am thinking that RAM could be an issue, since it has only 1GB, and I am awaiting my 2GB stick that I will be swapping in.

I did play with some of the other variants while I pondered things, but it seems like eeePC 1000 models are oddly supported as of now. Seems like the newer ones, as well as the line itself, are changing hardware. Notably the wireless. And none of it is for the better with regards to linux support.

The next thing it seems like I need to do is re-figure out how suspend works and which version of suspend that Fedora uses. I had hacked an old install of Ubuntu 6.06 ages ago to make the ATI and Atheros drivers play nice out of suspend (unload, suspend / wake up, reload). I need to do something for NetworkManager on my eee or to unload/reload as I did in the past.

We shall see. I suppose it would behoove me to get a script that a fresh install can be ran against to make things purrty and functional.

[eddie]

Note: if your unit has an atom instead of the celeron, get that version of the install cd. I know that ubuntu has one but it is hidden with the powerpc and etc installs. you can use the web search engine to find it. Fedora also has a network install.


As Pat says, Debian will run on anything. There is nothing exotic about the installs. We just do a network install without the desktop and then manually add it in surgically later. You can even do a debian etch network install from floppy and then upgrade to lenny later via the net. I have no problem using debian on a 1g hd. A little sshfs and you have all the space you need from a server. gmail also makes a fine portable 6g or so drive (but I have not used it lately.) We do use a light desktop, but not as fancy as Dave Yates, but I am beginning to like icewm more and more. I may try lxde. I did see an article where you could make dsl to be debian apt-get compatible as another option. We were running debian on an nslu2 but, I acquired several p3's for free and then so I reset the nslu2 to original firmware. In linux, now you can pretty much find anything already almost turnkey if you look. The only thing I am doing now that is halfway interesting, Is that I am taking two old dell gx110's to make a high availability cluster for a web server using http://www.howtoforge.com as a guide. I have no idea what I am doing, but that makes it more fun............

[LinuxMint-4]

Please see my separate post about "Easy Peasy for Netbooks" on the EEE PC 4 G.

[schotty]

Note: if your unit has an atom instead of the celeron, get that version of the install cd. I know that ubuntu has one but it is hidden with the powerpc and etc installs. you can use the web search engine to find it. Fedora also has a network install.

I was aware of everything you said, except the atom version. Thanks.

As Pat says, Debian will run on anything. There is nothing exotic about the installs. We just do a network install without the desktop and then manually add it in surgically later. You can even do a debian etch network install from floppy and then upgrade to lenny later via the net. I have no problem using debian on a 1g hd. A little sshfs and you have all the space you need from a server. gmail also makes a fine portable 6g or so drive (but I have not used it lately.) We do use a light desktop, but not as fancy as Dave Yates, but I am beginning to like icewm more and more. I may try lxde. I did see an article where you could make dsl to be debian apt-get compatible as another option. We were running debian on an nslu2 but, I acquired several p3's for free and then so I reset the nslu2 to original firmware. In linux, now you can pretty much find anything already almost turnkey if you look. The only thing I am doing now that is halfway interesting, Is that I am taking two old dell gx110's to make a high availability cluster for a web server using http://www.howtoforge.com as a guide. I have no idea what I am doing, but that makes it more fun............

Its a thought. Personally I hate the .deb package format from the creation side of things. Hence why I stick to RPM on anything that I will use day in and day out. If for any reason I need to do a software install, I am going to package it or its not getting installed. I have yet to get a consistent method of creating debs that renders clean proper packages.

The one system that I have Ubuntu on, is only on because there is nothing outside of Canonical's repos that I need on there. Gimp, Firefox, Thunderbird, and ssh. Thats it. In fact, I only have it on as a demo unit for the peeps that want to know what Ubuntu is. Otherwise, CentOS or Slack would be on it instead.

Nothing against the debian distros, but it just aint for me. Just like Gentoo.


And rock on with your cluster Sounds really cool, and a fun side project. For me, my side shit is blending into work shit. I am looking at selling some linux machines, but see some definite deficiencies in certain softwares. I am learning java and python to allow for me to create packages that will fill that gap. Unfortunately programming is not like riding a bicycle. BASIC 2.0 and 6502 assembly, PASCAL, and the ancient ilk has little to do with todays demands. My first tool is a software migration utility that will archive application's data to another location (trying to keep it flexible, so webdav, lan, thumbdrive, cd/dvd/brd are all possibilites) and conversely import them back in. I am looking to create a framework that allows for a plugin structure so that anyone can create a plugin and magically have the software know what to do. The first few apps I want to get going are

Firefox
Thunderbird
Sunbird
Gnome's settings
KDE's Settings
Gimps' settings
Home dir
Whole system

I am positive there are more tools that are out there that could use getting a plugin. The key here is I want this to be cross platform so peeps on windows can grab it, backup, slap linux on it, migrate old settings in. Voila old data, new system. Or clone system. I have had many a fun nights figuring out how to get my other systems like my main tower is. Fuck it. Clone it!

Any ideas or thoughts, send me an email. I am in the early coding phase. I just have to finish up a structure for plugins, and then document it thoroughly.

[eddie]

Remember slackware and 3 zillion floppies. You learned with the basic, a, and n disks, then went from there. es. Soon there should be the time after the cluster project to play with rh on low end machines. RH plans to make a low end distro or allow you to adjust an install for that purpose according to their media campaign. Centos is great too. I will use about anything but mandriva and gentoo.

We have zero computer budget right now. I had to beg and plead with the better half to get a usb to sata adapter. She let me have that, but the atom based mb was still no go. She knows I sometimes get free stuff and we are trying to whittle down the zoo as it is so to speak. We just let go of all the OLD macs. Though actually I just want one platform to deal with. Now she is waiting for me to do more trimming. The robotic projects are an excuse to keep the really old stuff. Using old p1 and older mb's is cheaper than buying the two to three hundred dollar tiny modules that run linux, Besides it is amazing what you can do with freedos/basic and really old hardware. (i.e security system).

As for programming, the code may change but the logic never really does. With OOPS there is not supposed to be all that logic, for procedural programming, but there actually is to some degree. Right now programming wise, learning python/java for some robotics projects and php/mysql/psql for web pages is my main thrust. I took mainframe asm at college, but programmed asm on the 6510/6502 on the commodore computers after learning from the late great Jim Butterfield. He was Cool.

[karst]

While mine is the 900 20G and there are a few differences between ours. You might want to try Crunch Bang linux EEE version Cruncheee. I just as in 30 minutes ago finished installing it on mine and it seems pretty snappy. It's quite a bit lighter than stock Ubuntu.

http://crunchbang.org/

Wireless and Sound worked out of the box. I haven't messed with the web cam yet, mainly as I have no use for the things. Video on Youtube worked out of the box too.