Topic: Just posting from my new laptop!

[RossRoy]

Hehe I love it already!

Yes, it's incredibly small, so I have to watch these fat fingers, but I still love that little one!

Oh yeah, I didn't say what make it is: Asus eeePC 900.

Yes, the system is insanely small! BUT, for the purpose I am planning for it, it's more than adequate.

It will actually be used as a quick reference computer with internet access for those spur of the moment internet searches you might have to do.

Also, as an added bonus, it'll help me get better acquainted with Linux, and also, I can take it with me when I go out to fix people's computer and I desperately need something from the web!

I had been been looking at getting an eeePC ever since they announced it back then. But I kept thinking that because it is so small, it would be useless. Boy was I wrong!  It does the job pretty well, even though I wouldn't use it for constant work hehe 

[Halo2]

RossRoy,

Looks like a nice one. And it's got an SSD. I've seen a couple Toshibas with 64GB SSDs.When they fail, there is no warning. With an IDE or SATA drive you might get some warning noises, but with no moving parts, the SSDs just go bad. Granted, there are only a couple hundred laptops in use where I work that use them and I've only see 1 bad and heard of 2 others. The technology is new, so failure rates will be higher. I'd love to see Apple, MS and other MP3 player manufatures go to them, I'd be able to quit replacing my wife's Ipod every 2-3 years.

(soapbox) I doubt I'll ever see Apple go to them. They make too much selling new Ipods when one dies or is stolen. They have the tecnology to shut down an Ipod reported stolen and, when the SSD market matures, the failure rate will plummet. They have no incentive, at this time, to switch to an SSD device in their Ipods. As CF, SD and other flash memory has been increasing in size, I have long held the opinion that it should replace hdd media. As we are approching an adequate size of media, we just need it to increase in durability.(/soapbox)

Anyway, nice unit. Looks like it should prove to be more than adequate for your intended purpose. Maybe the network appliance is making a comeback.

Halo2

[RossRoy]

I was a little concerned at first about the SSD, for the reason you mention that it's relatively new and probably a little more prone to failure, but then, for what I am planning to do, even  a sudden failure is not that big of a deal. I'm just a bit concerned of the replacement cost for a new SSD drive, but then, I'm guessing that by the time it fails, prices should have gone down a little (I hope anyway hehe).

I've not opened the SSD compartment either, maybe whenever it fails, I will be able to fit a standard hdd, should the cost of an SSD be too high.

But other than that, the unit is quite capable and is actually fun to use. Love the dual finger function of the touchpad (two finger scrolls and zoom, though I've yet to try the zoom, so it may not work)

[lyonsden5]

congrats on the new laptop!  Looks very interesting.

[RossRoy]

congrats on the new laptop!  Looks very interesting.

Yes, it's a nice little beast. I still haven't managed to configure it with the Canadian French keyboard yet though, but I haven't looked much.

I've also found easy instructions on getting a full desktop (KDE) installed, insteead of the default easy mode, while still retaining easy mode. Also found how to customize the easy mode menu.

All in all, I'm quite impressed at what it's capable of, for such a small package.

It even recognized my G7 wireless gaming mouse without any special configuration to the system! Is Linux really becoming user-friendly?

[Achim]

I was just going to ask if it's the Linux one... A colleague of mine said he has it (and he knows nothing about computers, so apparently it is user friendly...)

Congratulations. It's always good to have a small tool like that available...

[RossRoy]

Well well.. Guess Linux is not so user friendly after all (or maybe it,s just the eeePC design itself)..

I was looking around the web to install new applications on the system. I read that I had to edit the repositories. No problem, it's only a text file, and I can copy paste, right?

Thing is, the repositories from the site, gave the 701 model repositories. I have the 900. I didn't notice this when I made the change. I didn't backup the file when I made the change. So what happens? No more updates to the system are accessible. And I get a key error when updating the repositores for Asus eeePC. Yay! Go me! 

Recovery it is! (at least, it's a simple process)