Asus Eee PC Tips

This page is about the Asus Eee PC 900 netbook serie with Xandros Linus preinstalled.

The Wiki at eeeuser.com seems to have many useful infos about tweaking the Eee. And for German speaking people, the manuals at einfach-eee.de are also useful.

• A console window can be started with Strg+Alt+T
• Get full root access by typing sudo bash in console
• cat /etc/*version gives the Debian- and the EeePc version. Where to get the Xandros version on wich the EeePc-OS is based on?

On my exemplar of the Eee the default app to update software did not work. But an alternative package manager did:

1. Start a console window with Strg+Alt+T
2. Get full root access by typing sudo bash in console
3. Start alternative package manager by typing synaptic
4. Download and installation of the new packages in Synaptic is self-explanatory then

German source

Additional packages can be installed with apt-get or it's graphical frontend snaptic.

For this you have to add additional repositories sources for apt. This can be done directly in snaptic or manually by editing /etc/apt/sources.list.
According to the links below, the Eeepc-OS is based on Xandros 4. This means repositories for this OS have to be added. On good repo seems to be

deb http://www.geekconnection.org/ xandros4 main

More detailled information and more repositories can be found here:

• http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/11/06/eee-pc-tips-a-crash-course-in-linux/
• http://wiki.eeeuser.com/addingxandrosrepos
• http://www.einfach-eee.de/tutorials/linux/software-aus-anderen-quellen-installieren/
• http://www.einfach-eee.de/tutorials/linux/mehr-stoff-fuer-den-eeepc/

An alternative method might be the tratditional way of compiling source code with ./configure; make; make install, but in order to do this, first the compiler and development tools must be installed with apt-get.

Settings → Personalization → Keyboard Layout lets you select only between 3 different English Layouts. Select English/UK here, then all characters on the keyboard match with what you get on the screen.

But if you need an additional keyboard layout, eg. to get German Umlauts, you need to switch the layout to a different language then English:

• Start Work → File Manager
• Klick on View → Show all File Systems
• Go to /usr/bin/ directory
• Doubleclick on kcontrol
• In KDE Control Center go to Peripheral Devices → Keyboard Layout
• Remove the US English Layout and add United Kingdom(gb) instead
• Then add whatever layout(s) you need, eg. Germany(de)
• Klick Apply

Afterwards in the system tray (left side on the bottom of the screen) will appear a British or German or whatever selected national flag, which can be used to switch between the different keyboard layouts. It may be necessary to restart some applications in order to get the new new layout accepted.

• Custom apps for simple mode: /var/lib/AsusLauncher/simpleui.rc see http://forum.eeeuser.com/viewtopic.php?pid=31854#p31854
• Enabling Full Desktop Mode
  • http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/11/06/eee-pc-tips-a-crash-course-in-linux/
  • http://www.pcwelt.de/start/software_os/linux/praxis/109838/linux_tipps_fuer_profis/index.html
• Config IceWM, the default window manager
• Remove keyboard systray icons