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Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

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Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#71

Post by tapanjk »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #32

The eee PC was also the original netbook used for the "booting Linux in five seconds" presentation at the first Linux Plumbers Conference: https://lwn.net/Articles/299483/ That presentation inspired a whole wave of boot optimizations across the industry, that recalibrated the expectations for what "boot fast" meant. If you look at some systems at the time, "boots in 30 seconds" was a selling point . Today, you can re…

> Today, you can reasonably expect a system to be done booting in a second ...

Unless you work for a large enterprise and your laptop is managed by IT. Not sure what goes on but getting from power on to the point where you can start using your laptop seems to take ages.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#72

Post by joecool1029 »

Nursie wrote: post #42
Sunspark wrote: post #15

The Eee PC 701 was amazing. It was really good for students who needed something small and light that they could take to the library, etc. The alternative back then was a heavy power-hungry full-size laptop. This is before all the stuff we take for granted today like tablets, etc. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 was the next really good netbook. After those, Apple introduced the Macbook Air which came in a 11.6" size. Even…

Nah, the 901 was where it was at! Atom chip, more usable screen size, 4GB system drive that was reasonably snappy. I used that thing for years, even ran OSX snow-leopard on it for a while.

I still have one in operating condition. It was the first laptop I owned with SSD's (dual SSD setup, 4GB SLC and 16GB MLC SSD. Also had SD card for expansion. The SSD's were unique in that they slotted into slots that were physically mini-pcie slots, but wired electrically with SATA, PATA, and USB.

Having the SSD setup in 2007 was ahead of its time and really made the laptop feel faster than it was. Also being the size of a paperback book meant it traveled well.

After the 901, Asus was sorta forced to kill the line as Windows sold more units than Linux and was a pig on drive usage (Microsoft stopped licensing XP as it was long in the tooth by this point). Rather than throw the dual SSD setup in, they moved to slow 250GB HDD's and sized up the keyboard/screeen to 10". Basically became a cheap and slow and not that much smaller laptop.

Oh, another random thing the 901 had was lots of easy to access internal USB headers to wire devices to internally like additional drives and touch panel. This was something else removed in later models cost cutting.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#74

Post by protonbob »

I had the EEE PC 1005HA with osx 10.6 Hackintosh and ubuntu 10.04 installed. Maybe not so coincidentally, those are my two favorite operating systems. With a 2GB ram upgrade, it was more than enough for me to browse the Ubuntu forums and hang out on IRC. Also, to make horrible music with garage band.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#75

Post by grecy »

Sunspark wrote: post #15

The Eee PC 701 was amazing. It was really good for students who needed something small and light that they could take to the library, etc. The alternative back then was a heavy power-hungry full-size laptop. This is before all the stuff we take for granted today like tablets, etc. The Dell Inspiron Mini 9 was the next really good netbook. After those, Apple introduced the Macbook Air which came in a 11.6" size. Even…

I ran MacOS X on my Dell Mini 9, it was a close to flawless as you could get back then in such a tiny portable. From memory, sleep was the only thing that didn't work 100% correctly - I always just shut it down.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#76

Post by winterpunk »

i ran an eeepc 701, then 1000HA, for seven years put together until the motherboard on the 1000HA died. maxed out the ram, installed an SSD, and expanded battery.

ran xmonad with lxde parts, and tiny little pixel fonts in my terminal. mostly used terminal apps, and firefox with noscript, vimperator, and sub-100% scaling.

probably the most bespoke computing experience i've ever bothered to put together. my sticker game was incredible. the phrase "FREE WIFI" was a strong contender for knuckle tats.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#77

Post by Animats »

I still have four EeePCs. I had four of the original Linux-only model with the tiny keyboard and weird Linux distro. Those I got from a startup which bought a lot of them and found them useless. I replaced those with EeePC 1001 ("Seashell") models, which I buy on eBay for about US$30, wipe, and install Xubuntu.

They're convenient for things for which one might use a Raspberry Pi. You get a keyboard, screen, case, power supply, hard disk, battery, and ports. It costs more to build a Raspberry Pi up to that level.

That's what I use to run all those antique Teletype machines I restored. I have USB to 60mA 45 baud converters I built to interface them.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#78

Post by Animats »

MichaelCollins wrote: post #40
orangepurple wrote: post #25

My takeaway from the article: Microsoft gave ASUS a deal they couldn't refuse. ASUS took the bait and sold the Eee PC with Windows preinstalled but the version of Windows was a little too crappy. Ultimately this sealed their fate as people upgraded to a "real computer," resigning the Eee PC's position to that of a toy. Is this right?

The one I bought came with Linux, but some weird distro I never heard of and I doubt anybody would really want to use. So I install a mainstream distro on it, no big deal, but then the limitations of the very small screen size become apparent when KDE/GNOME fail to fit basic things like settings GUIs onto the screen. With a tiling window manager it became perfect for me. But I think most general computer users would…

> but then the limitations of the very small screen size become apparent when KDE/GNOME fail to fit basic things like settings GUIs onto the screen.

Yes, hit that problem.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#79

Post by 83457 »

ffhhj wrote: post #19

"The OLPC project was the subject of much discussion. It was praised for pioneering low-cost, low-power laptops and inspiring later variants such as Eee PCs and Chromebooks" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Laptop_per_Child

I'll always think of OLPC when the topic of netbooks comes up.

Re: Asus put out like 40 models of a laptop called the “Eee PC” (2021)

#80

Post by Nursie »

joecool1029 wrote: post #72
Nursie wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, the 901 was where it was at! Atom chip, more usable screen size, 4GB system drive that was reasonably snappy. I used that thing for years, even ran OSX snow-leopard on it for a while.

I still have one in operating condition. It was the first laptop I owned with SSD's (dual SSD setup, 4GB SLC and 16GB MLC SSD. Also had SD card for expansion. The SSD's were unique in that they slotted into slots that were physically mini-pcie slots, but wired electrically with SATA, PATA, and USB. Having the SSD setup in 2007 was ahead of its time and really made the laptop feel faster than it was. Also being the si…

It did feel pretty snappy due to the drives.

I replaced one of the internal ssds with a 64GB third-party add-on in mine, doubled up the RAM, replaced the webcam (Linux models for some reason came with a different camera module to windows one, and only the windows one was hackintosh compatible, so I had to ebay-it) and did all manner of other things to mine. Including replace the keyboard when I accidentally sliced through the ribbon cable :/

Really good, rugged, tiny little laptop. When I got bored of OS X I went back to debian, I think I only got rid of it a couple of years ago during a clearout. The addon drive was dead, as was one of the originals. Its last-ditch configuration was / on the original 4GB, /home on an SD card and lxde for a lightweight DE. After a while it struggled with youtube and stuff and I drifted away from it.

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