Vista pushes XP and Linux aside on Asus EeePC
By Jonathan Schlaffer
The Asus EeePC ships with Linux but with the help of an external DVD drive, it’s possible to install almost any OS of your choice, even Leopard with a bit of hacking but that comes with some legal issues that are discussed in that post.
Let’s face it, the Asus EeePC isn’t too terribly useful with the Linux install that it comes with, you can’t add applications to it until they are developed and the update installer is somewhat lacking. The first thing I did was wipe the hard drive and install Windows XP Home Edition but one user decided to install something else.
I wouldn’t have thought the EeePC capable of running Vista but according to the EeePC forums that’s exactly what one user is doing. To be fair, there may be more but this is the only one I know of.
It doesn’t get great ratings in Vista’s performance analysis but I wouldn’t expect it to, the fact that the little EeePC can run Vista is quite impressive. I’m going to call it “the little laptop that could.”
What’s next for the EeePC? Who knows but after this feat, I think a trip to Disney Land is in order.
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November 16th, 2007
How rediculous. Linux is perfect for this device. If you install XP or Vista, you had also better install extra firewall, anti-virus, etc or you might as well not hook it up to the internet. As for applications, there are thousands and thousands of them. Just because you cannot find them at your favourite Windows shareware site doesn’t mean they do not exist.
November 16th, 2007
@James, don’t take any notice of the things he writes, it’s all junk. Just take a look at his other articles.
November 17th, 2007
That’s how the world turns. Hackers discussing how to replace a factory installed OS with a MS product. Is Linux THAT mainstream nowdays?
November 26th, 2007
There are many factual inaccuracies in this blog.
For one, it is easy to “add applications to it”. Hop over to the eeeuser.com forums and they’ll show you how within a matter of minutes.
Yes, you can install Vista Basic if you want to, but then that adds 50% to the price and subtracts 50% of the performance. You can try installing Aero if you want. Enjoy the slideshow.
I’ve seen CompizFusion running on one of these and it’s very, very acceptable but, hey, 3D graphics on an 800×480 screen?
November 27th, 2007
I didn’t say it was hard… I said that applications had to be developed for it before you could install them. You can’t install just ANY application to it unless it has been customized for the distro of Xandros it comes with.
November 28th, 2007
How long do you think that Solid State Drive is going to last with Windows constantly writing to it?
Less that a year I would guess.
The system was designed to use Linux for a reason.
But have fun breaking it if that is what you want to do.
March 9th, 2008
I’m also thinking of trying out vista on the eeepc, not because I like it but because I have a spare retail set sitting around unused. I have two notebooks … one running Winhome (KJS) another running WinPro, 701 eeepc running Xandros with 2gb ram and an 8gb sdhc card.
I’ve tried a few deb package and most of them works right out of the box. Dependencies are automatically downloaded and installed, though ignorance about these packages does not mean they don’t take up space or will always work fine.
The only problem I have with linux packages via synaptic or apt-get is that unless you know what app you want, browsing through a thousand app list is crazy without so much as a screenshot thumbnail listing (think youtube apps). That is what keeps me from fully switching over to linux so far. I think/know what I want is out there in the mesh, I just don’t know the name of the app that does what I want.
July 12th, 2008
What a load of crap. Why would an SDD last less than a year, they have a far higher MTBF than mechanical hard drives. Understand technology before spouting off!