Asus Eee PC 1.6 Linux Use summary

This is the first diary of Asus Eee PC 900HA Netbook Use Summary diaries series, the next will be: Ubuntu 9.04 on Eee PC 900HA.

My Eee PC 900HA come with Eee PC 1.6 Linux Operating System which customized from Xandros OS, and this Xandros OS based on Debian 4. It is enough as the function for a “netbook”, but, for its high customization level, the expandability is weak for use it as a full function computer. I think it as a meaningful taste of the customized Linux.

Why did I reserve this Eee PC 1.6 Linux in netbook?

It can’t satisfied my using netbook as a full function computer, but I still keep this OS in my machine. There are some useful softwares in it. My most used software in this OS is: MeBook, a multimedia English learning reader. This is a Close Source software, the feature codes of the machine has been binded, so I can’t use it in virtual machine and hasn’t tranplant into Ubuntu 9.04 successfully( the old libraries be used ). Some English learning materials has been integrated in it, and we can buy the new learning materials with a reasonable price, such as: 5 Yuan, 10 Yuan an e-book, the shopping and downloading have been integrated in this software( but payment isn’t possible for many online payment in China can only be used under IE )…

And, I think “Eee Download” is a good staff in this OS. There are some useful softwares and musics and videos and so on in it. Although most of these softwares should can be gotten by APT system in Debian based OS, but it provided a more straight style to us to install softwares.

This netbook came with 10G Network Storage Disk, after I activated my Eee PC account and regsiter. I found there are four years service without fee. I remember the free service of years is two when I just bought it. We can download many games, pictures, musics and videos from its public download center. And provide the newest softwares to get the better hardware performance.

I stop introduce other softwares in this Eee PC 1.6 Linux OS. You can dig them youself.

I think, the applications and services is very important for an OS or even machine. If an application or service is very exellent, in spite of which OS it is in, the people who need it will use it and that OS.

I will make a brief introduction: how to modify the Grub menu in Eee PC 1.6 Linux to boot other OSs, how to partition disk for other OSs, how to install a virtual machine software ( include VirtalBox and Vmware Player ).

Because Eee PC 1.6 Linux adopts Unionfs, the default installation uses the first and the second partition. The first partition can’t be written when enter this OS, so I copied the content of /.ro/boot into /.rw/, and then edited /.rw/boot/grub/menu.lst, CTRL + ALT + T to open console terminal, performed “sudo grub”, and then “root (hd0,1)”, “setup (hd0)”, I can write the grub boot information into MBR. The other OSs can be booted when I config Grub boot parameter in this way at the beginning. But, it can’t work later and I haven’t find reason until today. So, the second way which has been working well until today I adopted it. First, started system with USB Linux made by CDlinux, copied kernel and image files of other OSs into the first partition ( it is /.ro partition in Eee PC 1.6 Linux ), edited “boot/grub/menu.lst” file in this partition, then perform “sudo grub”, “root (hd0,0)”, “setup (hd0)” to write the grub boot information into MBR. Because there are four partitions in the initial system, the third used to update BIOS and the fourth used to speed system booting. According to partitioning scheme in Asus Eee PC 900HA Netbook Use Summary diaries series, deleted two partitions at the end of disk, shrinked the second partition( /dev/sda2 ), the fourth partition is extended partition, and there are some logical partitions in this extended partition to install Ubuntu and store data. I used the USB Linux to perform partitioning disk and adjusting partitions.

The brief installation steps of virtual machine like below. Install development tools “build-essential” package at first, refer to Installing Development Tools, Eee PC 900HA need download EeePC-SDK-2008.04.24_19.46.iso, then mount this CDROM iso file, make the mounted directory as an apt source, install “build-essential”; Then install VirtualBox according to HOWTO: Install VirtualBox. The method of Vmware player installation is similar to VirtualBox.

Although the expandability of this OS is weak, because it is customized from Xandros OS which based on Debian. So can install some softwares use their apt sources. But it is dangerous, it maybe destory your system especially upgrade some base libraries, so I sugguest you don’t touch these base libraries ( e.g., glic ). Commonly, it is safe if install a software only increase instead of decrease or upgrade some packages. Post the apt sources I got from internet and I have proved it can work, you can add them into your “/etc/apt/sources.list” file.

deb http://xnv4.xandros.com/xs2.0/upkg-srv2 etch main contrib non-free
deb http://ftp.tw.debian.org/debian etch main contrib non-free


As I said, the installation with these apt sources can’t work fully, some softwares I haven’t installed successfully like below: QQ for Linux, Fetion for Linux, the Fetion plugin for Pidgin, etc..

Ok, stop here for introducing Eee PC 1.6 Linux of Eee PC 900HA Linux version.

The next will be: Ubuntu 9.04 on Eee PC 900HA.