I was referred to a utility this morning for use with the Asus EeePC netbook. This utility allows you to simply control hardware (wireless, camera, sD), performance and hotkeys. Models supported are: 701/701SD, 702, 900, 900A, 901 and 1000/1000H.
To install the .deb package and begin using the eee control tool, see this site.
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I wanted to throw out a quick thank-you to all those that attended my OpenWeek Presentation today. I think things went really well and had some great questions and suggestions from those in attendance. If you missed the presentation and would like to catch up on the logs you can find them here.
It also appears that we’ve formed a loose new team/group, dedicated to advancement of Ubuntu support on the EeePC. If you’d like to participate please drop me a note (see my contact page) or drop by the #ubuntu-eeepc irc channel for discussion. Our goal is to have 100% support out-of-the-box by Ubuntu 8.10 “Intrepid”. Think we can do it? 
I hope by now you’ve heard some of the noise regarding Ubuntu OpenWeek which begins tomorrow, 15:00 UTC in #ubuntu-classroom. We’re going to have some really cool, really interesting presentations this time around! I’m trying to figure out when I’ll have time for work there are so many presentations that I want to attend!
I also wanted to mention that I’ll be presenting on Thursday, 16:00 UTC. I’ll be presenting on using Ubuntu on the EeePC. If you have an EeePC still running Xandros, if you have an EeePC running Ubuntu (or derivative), or if you’re just thinking about getting one I think it’d be a great presentation for you to join. I’ll be discussing current and future EeePC specs, how to install on Ubuntu and how to customize the Gnome desktop for such a small resolution.
I use my EeePC more than any of my other machines anymore. I take it on the road with me when I travel, I write code on it, I write blog posts on it. Nearly anything I would do on my MacBook I do on my EeePC. Yes, even Compiz! Its a great little machine!
If you are an EeePC user and have suggestions on items to include in the presentation please leave a comment. If you are not an EeePC user and have specific questions you’d like me to cover I also invite you to leave a comment. See everyone on Thursday!
Someone asked me today how Ubuntu was working on the EeePC. It’s working great! I thought I might share some of my experiences so far, after a bit more use. If you are interested in installing Ubuntu 7.10 on your EeePC head on over to the Ubuntu Community Wiki and find out how!
Travel
This machine is so light I love it. It’s easy to carry around, takes up minimal space, and is really easy to use on an airplane. I’ve been on four flights since getting this machine and it makes for a great little video player (sans optical drive, of course) for using in flight. I simply rip the videos I want down to .mpg or something and throw them on a removable USB.
Productivity
I’ve been on two business trips now since Christmas and this is the only machine that I have taken with me. I have not run into an issue yet with wishing I had something bigger. When I’m using it during the day I connect my USB mouse, and go. Wireless works great, the keyboard is fine once you get used to it. I can do web browsing, chat, email, write code.. pretty much everything I used to do on my MacBook (minus write CD/DVDs and use virtualization).
Recommendations
I really recommend this machine. I really like it, and I’m really glad that my awesome wife bought it for me for Christmas. Man does she spoil me! If you’ve been thinking about it, I’d go for it. It’s cheap, tiny and just as productive as any comparably priced device.
Complaints
The only complaints that I have are:
Do yourself a favor if you’re still running the default OS and toss out the Xandros junk and use a real distro.. the one-true Distro, Ubuntu!
I realized the other nite that I have been using my EeePC at 640×480 since I got it. Man, how miserable is that resolution! Well, I set out to figure out how to make sure I was using the larger resolution and didn’t find much. This post outlines the steps I took, and I’ve also added this to my pet-project, the EeePC wiki page.
Reconfiguring X
It was actually pretty simple to improve the resolution on the EeePC. To do so we’ll just reconfigure the xserver-xorg package and verify two settings.
sudo dpkg-reconfigure xserver-xorg
I used all of the defaults that were prompted, selecting “intel” as the video driver and also selecting “800×600″ as the resolution. Technically the resolution we want to use is 800×480, but that is not listed. Selecting the higher resolution will fall back to the one we want.
After you’ve toggled these settings it’ll create an xorg backup (just in case). You can then restart your desktop and should have a new improved resolution. Restarting can be done via ctrl-alt-backspace. I generally log-out before I do that key combo as I think its a bit cleaner.
I started a blog post on how to install Ubuntu 7.10 on the EeePC and before I knew it the post was about a mile long. I figured it was better at that point to publish the information on the Ubuntu community Wiki (this one is for you Popey). So, for all of you that are interested in installing Ubuntu 7.10 on an Asus EeePC, please have a look at the Ubuntu community wiki and make any improvements you can.
Just wanted to throw out a quick Happy Holidays to all the readers out there. I will be posting some “Ubuntu on the Eee PC” tutorials just as soon as I get them organized. There is a lot of really helpful documentation on the Eee user website, but some of it does seem a bit scattered. Again, I’ll see what I can put together for easy-to-follow steps soon..
Initial impressions of the Eee PC.
I have the 4G, 512M, 3.5hr battery white model (701). I think my end result will be Xubuntu (probably based on eeeXubuntu). For those interested I should have a tutorial up by tomorrow. Until then, enjoy the holiday and take it easy.