Status of Linux Mint XFCE on the ASUS eee laptop?

[shengchieh]

Hi

What is the status of Linux Mint XFCE on the ASUS eee mini-laptop? I know there has been limited success using the KDE Linux Mint
and mostly working for the GNOME Linux Mint (I think - I'm not sure).

Sheng-Chieh

p.s. Developers, the lspci output of the eee is

http://shengchieh.50webs.com/eeelspcioutputs.txt

Also I have all the drivers on the DVD that came with the eee. A listing is at

http://shengchieh.50webs.com/eeedrivers.txt

[Husse]

Maybe I should not say something, but as far as I know ASUS is using a heavily tweaked Linux on the eee
and it may be hard to get something else to work (not impossible)

[shengchieh]

Maybe I should not say something, but as far as I know ASUS is using a heavily tweaked Linux on the eee
and it may be hard to get something else to work (not impossible)

I know they are using a very modified version of xandros, but I'm talking about using Linux Mint only (and nothing to do with xandros).
There are already 18+ distros that runs on the eee. Scroll down 2/3 in (about 16+ in the wiki and few more in the eee forum)

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/

Mandriva 2008.1 is the first eee-friendly distro (where everything works right out of the box) - so I know it is possible to have everything to work.
Even now I have MiniMe and have many things work. And I know other distros have various levels of success.

The eee is just another "PC box" with smaller components (and unfortunately have alot of "window" parts) - the reason why not all distributions have all
the drivers. That's the reason I also posted the list of driver (and I have the drivers on the eee DVD).

Sheng-Chieh

p.s. I'm interested in Linux Mint only because I need a ubuntu-based distro to add Dragon NaturallySpeaking via WINE.

[BlueSky]

I had this cute little thing in my paws and after a couple days hacking the original system, I can say that it's not quite easy to make a perfectly running system on EeePC. It's not just hardware that needs extra care. You also need to tune up the whole system. And that's a lot of work. Basically creating an extra edition of Mint for embedded devices seems like the best and easiest way.

[Husse]

@ BlueSky
Thanks for clarifying that - I feared so....

[shengchieh]

I had this cute little thing in my paws and after a couple days hacking the original system, I can say that it's not quite easy to make a perfectly running system on EeePC. It's not just hardware that needs extra care. You also need to tune up the whole system. And that's a lot of work. Basically creating an extra edition of Mint for embedded devices seems like the best and easiest way.

Can you clarify? What do you mean by "tune up the whole system"? Are you saying even if all the hardware is supported the machine would runs slow
(or something)?!?

Sheng-Chieh

[xvedejas]

What do you mean by "tune up the whole system"?

Maybe he means overclocking it, as the cpu is underclocked in the eeepc.

I can say that it's not quite easy to make a perfectly running system on EeePC.

I would like to know that at least a near-perfectly running system would/could work on it. I've seen it run ubuntu and xubuntu fine, why not mint?

[shengchieh]

And to add to it....

Mandriva spring 2008.1 claims their distro is "eee compatible" when they released the distro. A quote from their wiki

Enhancements to Mandriva software management tools

Improvements have been made to the interface of the RPMdrake graphical software management tool. The search interface has been reorganized to provide more capabilities while being easier to understand and use. Packages can once more be sorted by size, and the flat list view has been re-introduced. The tool is now more friendly to low-resolution devices (such as the Eee): the package pane can be resized, and the large grey banner at the top of the tool is not displayed at lower resolutions.

Also note in the second half of

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/overview.html

there are other mainstream distros running on the eee.

Concerning the cpu, it can easily be overclocked - been discussed many times in the eeeuser.com forum.

Sheng-Chieh

[mycropht]

Been using Daryna on my 4G eee for a while now. Haven't tried XFCE but no reason it shouldn't work. You will want the ubuntu script pack from here:

http://code.google.com/p/eee-ubuntu-support

Good advice here:

http://eee.ricey.co.uk/index.php

Hope it helps you. Looking forward to Elyssa