Eee Box B202 And Ubuntu 8.10

[threegee]

This is mainly for anyone contemplating installing Ubuntu Linux on an Eee Box.

Was a bit worried about all the install problems for this relatively new machine I've come across on the net. Anyway I resolved to do it the hard way and ignore the Eee tailored Ubuntu editions out there. I used the latest 8.10 release and aimed for a dual boot Ubuntu/XP machine.

Burned the CD image on my laptop, transferred the USB cable to the Eee, booted off the live CD - no need to make any changes in the BIOS a USB CD/DVD drive is already the second boot device (after a USB stick).

Ubuntu Live loaded with everything but the WiFi working, and at a full 1600x1200! I then used the partition manager straight off the live CD to steal space from the two NTFS partitions. One for the root partition (/) formatted ext3 and the other for the /swap partition. There was no need to allocate a /boot partition or anything like that. This was the manual partitioning route. The automatic would have robbed most of the space from Windows XP, or wiped it out! Therefore - although I could sympathise with that strategy - I didn't quite like the look of what it was proposing.

The mistake I made was to make the /swap partition vastly too big. Forgot that the rule of thumb is to make the swap double the RAM size (so 2GiB then!) - will return and correct that later.

You can then run the install program straight away (without rebooting) from the install icon. Answered the seven install questions (Microsoft please note how simple this is, and it' a fully international too). Rebooted - it even prompted and ejected the live CD automatically, and after the Express Gate screen Grub allows a dual boot (well actually five boot options, but that's another story!).

Writing this now on the Eee Box. I'm using Windows because I haven't figured the WiFi driver for Ubuntu yet. Full instructions on this when I do. But I've played for hours with Ubuntu at 1600x1200 with dual desktop, (which is the default configuration) and see nothing I want to change. I note from the task manager that its even running Python 2.5 as a background process - so naturally I had to do a "Hello, Python World!\n" script to test this!

I will be writing a full review on the Eee Box when it has been fully shaken down and suitably hacked. But for £200 or less it's fair to say it's looking like just about the best buy ever. All the computer most (non-gaming) people need, and more, in a tiny box. A friend of a friend who called in yesterday rushed off to buy one from the nearest shop, and that was before I'd installed and shown him a decent O/S!

[Monsta®]

what is the point of the Eee box? is it just a cheap Mac mini copy? why has is not even got a disc drive? and where is the space for upgrades?

another pointless invention!

[threegee]

Wireless now working - wooo hooo! I did it my way - refused to get off my backside to hardwire the RJ45 - lazy or what? Easy instructions around chicken 'n' egg problem of needing Internet to get WiFi working real soon.

Hey Monsta am I imagining the 1.6 Terrabytes of storage showing available on this wee thing just at this moment? And don't use dirty words like Mac around here p-l-e-a-s-e!

[Monsta®]

Hey Monsta am I imagining the 1.6 Terrabytes of storage showing available on this wee thing just at this moment? And don't use dirty words like Mac around here p-l-e-a-s-e!

so you can put two harddrives in it? so what i can put up to 10 in mine and put the latest 9 series gts card plus upto 6 other pci cards of my choice! and where do you burn discs? oh you have to faf on tranfering files to other pcs/ laptops!

no as i said a cheap Apple Mac (MINI) copy!

[threegee]

so you can put two harddrives in it? so what i can put up to 10 in mine and put the latest 9 series gts card plus upto 6 other pci cards of my choice! and where do you burn discs? oh you have to faf on tranfering files to other pcs/ laptops!

no as i said a cheap Apple Mac (MINI) copy!

You completely miss the point! It's not in any way competing with high end PC's. But it is as much PC as the vast majority of people need, and at only 200 notes (including keyboard and mouse).

At only 20 watts it's extremely green too. On computing power per watt Atom CPUs are an order of magnitude better than anything that has gone before. Will pay for itself here in the amount of power it saves over a couple of years. Also I can get a browser or Skype up in about 15 seconds from cold; how long does your power chomping monster take? Horses for courses - there's no single best computer.

Not remotely a Mac, it's a proper PC. No problems burning/transferring files either - it's called a home network!

Wait for the full review before you do your negative thing, you just might learn something. Else borrow one and do your own in-depth review. We're waiting!

[Mr Darn]

from what i can see...if you want a pc to surf the net and read email, it seems like a great choice.

although, you can get pc's now with mouse and keyboard that will also have a disk drive for similer prices...

why have a towbar if your never gonna tow anything tho?

[threegee]

Third (or is it fourth?) generation Eee box coming real soon now.

• Much smarter.
• Fixes the (dumb) criticism that it doesn't have an optical drive.
• Gets rid of that awkward "front door".
• Adds performance with a dual core (four hyper-thread) Atom N330, and NVidia Ion graphics.
• Comes with a bigger hard drive (250GB) and 2GB RAM as standard.
• Shipped with Windows 7 Premium (not starter).

It still has 'N' Wifi and Gigabit ethernet. At £330 this is actually better value than the original B202 still selling at around £200 (they bumped the price for a while due to shortages), or indeed any of the in-between models.

Can you still bolt it on the back of a monitor/panel TV with a Vesa bracket? Dunno yet, but I'd be dissapointed if there isn't a Vesa bracket in the box as this was one of the coolest features.

Asus Eee Box EB1501

I built an Atom N330 machine with an early chip a while back and compared it side by side with the original N270 Eee Box. It was significantly better on video, even with the same Intel graphics chip. The NVidia Ion graphics is way better though - which should make this a great media box!

This is turning out to be a very successful format, now copied by the likes of Acer!

[Monsta®]

looks good for a net browsing word processor! still can't be taken seriously as theres no expansion available!