My buddy Mustang wanted an EEE PC, my other buddy was selling his for $150. Me acting as a middle man I was able to work the deal out, so I have had the honor to try out my hacky hands with this contraption. Its currently running a nice clean install of XP Pro Corporate. One thing that really pissed me off is that Asus sold this as a "Laptop for Hackers" but wont let you hack it. At first the violated the GPL License by not releasing proper drivers so you can install your on distribution of linux. They also made it so that replacing or upgrading the RAM or Solid State Hard Drive (SSHDD) voided the warranty. Thats really shitty! How can you tell me I will void my warrenty because I put more standard, off the shelf RAM in the unit? I can understand if I took the whole thing apart and took my soldering iron to the board, but to void it under the pretense that I replace standard hardware... fuck you. It seems they used "Linux Hacker" more as a marketing term than conforming to the Open Source sensibility of homebrew hackers and technophiles alike. This alone made me digress an EEE purchase.
Now, I like the size, but here are some minor gripes, besides the obvious maketing and licence blunders of the past:
- The touchpad is too small to be remotely useful.
- The 7" LCD isnt big enough to hold a typical GUI, even a slimmed down GUI.
- The keyboard is very hard to use without using the 'Hunt and peck' method.
- Battery... can we please have an official extended battery?
I like the SDHC, right now I have an 8GB card in there. I havent gone to installing linux to SD yet, or to a USB Drive, but with a little tech know-how its not hard at all. If you think GRUB is a type of bug, then you shouldnt even bother with an EEE. I have managed to BSOD the EEE within minutes of using it, but I just have that talent. Seeing how this isnt mine, I didnt really dig into it. Once mustang gets his paws on it, I will surely be by his side ready to sink my claws in.
For productivity, this thing is useless. The screen is too small to hold a standard formatted screen for text editing, and the keyboard is harder to use than a thorn covered butt plug. If you want it for generic mobile bullshit, its great! Add a beefed up wifi card and bluetooth stick, some nice linux software, and you could be a severe threat to anyone roaming the electronic frontier within the immediate area. Or just be a typical myspace/facebook whore... but beyond generic playing, which I must say, I do a lot, I wouldnt buy one at full price, and if I did get one, a 10" screen would be the best one to get if you can.
Once I get this off to mustang and we work on it a bit, I will post some more about the hellish hacks and misadventures of BSoD and friends.
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