Run Debian on your Eee PC

While Ubuntu is feverishly working on modifying its distro to work on small mobile PCs and other miniature devices, Debian has been working on making its GNU/Linux distribution easily installable on the Asus Eee PC.

Earlier models are better-supported, but the team involved is aiming to make every Eee Debian-friendly:

Naturally, the earliest DebianEeePC/Models are supported best, but full support for all models is not far off. In particular, the 701 is very well supported, the 900 is almost entirely supported and we have some users reporting success on our mailing list with the model 901. Aided by their participation, we will soon support the 901 and other Atom-based models (1000 and 1000H). When the 904HD and 1000HD become available to us, we will expand our support to include them too.

While the Eee’s “original” OS, namely Xandros, is based on Debian, it’s not of the same “free” ilk. Whatever that means to you, if anything is one thing, but I’ve found over the past year and a half that Debian runs pretty darn well on more systems than most Linux distributions and is very flexible, so it may be well worth trying on your Eee.

The biggest problem using Linux or BSDs on hardware they don’t ship with is ACPI support (power management, turning the machine on and off via the menus, controlling the various fans) and networking (wired and wireless).

I read a while ago that the Eee might ship with Debian at some point, but talk about that has cooled considerably, and now it seems that Asus is more keen on shipping Eees with Windows and not even Xandros.

Linus says OS X Leopard is ‘utter crap’

Linus Torvalds, father of the open-source Linux operating system, says that in some ways Apple’s OS X is “actually worse than Windows. He saved the phrase “utter crap” for OS X’s filesystem. He says:

“An operating system should be completely invisible,” he said. “To Microsoft and Apple (it is) a way to control the whole environment … to force people to upgrade their applications and hardware.”

I’m no Linus, but that seems a bit harsh. Even so, there’s a new OS X filesystem on the horizon, I’ve heard.

Back in the Linux realm, Torvalds says he admires the One Laptop Per Child initiative as well as the low-cost -power and -size ASUS eee-PC laptop.

SCALE 6X — An interview with publicity chairman Orv Beach

We all know that Linux is a kernel, an operating system, maybe even a socio-political movement (it depends on whom you ask), but in a sense, Linux is about people — those who create, use and promote it.

One of those people is Orv Beach, publicity chairman for SCALE 6X — the Southern California Linux Expo — being held Feb. 8-10 in Los Angeles. Since I’m covering the convention for Click, I took the opportunity to interview Orv after hearing from him about getting press credentials for the event, which I wouldn’t miss, by the way. And if you do plan on attending, Orv told me that using the promo code CAST when registering for SCALE can get you 40 percent off of admission.

Orv, where do you live, how old are you, and what do you do for a living?
I live in Simi Valley, California, with my wife Beth. I’m 58, and I have four grown kids and four wonderful grandkids. Professionally, I’m the IT director at Simi Valley Hospital.

How did you first discover open-source software, and what part does it play in your work and home life today?
I’ve been interested in technology all my life. I got my amateur radio license when I was 17, and enjoyed building radio equipment as much as operating.

I got my first computer in about 1979, and when amateur packet radio was authorized by the FCC, it was a natural to use a computer with it. A popular packet radio program at the time was TNOS, written by Brian Lantz. It ran under DOS, and was a communications program & BBS. Brian had an active users group and was happy to add features to TNOS. As it grew in size, the C compiler he was using had more and more difficulties compiling it (It was Borland Turbo C, I think). So he moved TNOS over to Linux to use GCC as the compiler, and a large percentage of his users followed him.

I got Linux from a programmer at work. At that time it was 16 floppies, and that minimal version didn’t include X Windows. I ran it on a 40 MHz 386 with 8 Megs of RAM. I’ve been using Linux steadily ever since and moved my desktop computer over to it full time about six years ago, and my wife’s about four years ago.

At work, while Adventist Health isn’t a full-blown user of open-source software, they’re edging that way. The web programmers at our corporate office seem to have fallen in love with Plone. Some of the programming groups are moving to Project.Net for project management, too. Locally, I use Nagios to monitor over a hundred devices on our hospital network, and we use ZoneMinder to monitor some video cameras.

Now that SCALE is in its sixth year, how big was the convention the first time around, and what kind of growth has it seen? How many exhibitors, speakers and attendees do you expect this year?
SCALE is an offshoot of the “LUGFests” that SCLUG (the Simi-Conejo Linux Users Group – http://sclug.org) held every 6 months where they met at the Nortel building in Simi Valley. They were miniconferences, with people demonstrating open source software and even a few commercial vendors. Even as limited as they were, they drew Linux users from all over Southern California. SCLUG held 4 of them before Nortel closed down that building. (There’s an article on LUGFest III here).

The last LUGFest, LUGFest IV, drew 400 people over two days. Based on the response to the LUGFests, we knew we were filling a need for information and education on open-source software.

So after a hiatus of a year or so, SCLUG, UCLALUG and USCLUG jointly started SCALE. The first was held in the Davidson Conference Center at USC. It was one day, with two session tracks. We had 11 speakers spots and a panel, and it was a struggle to fill them. That first Linux Expo drew 400 attendees.

Contrast that with SCALE 6X, which will be held in February, five years later: The main Expo is now on Saturday and Sunday, has 32 speaker slots and two keynotes spread over four session tracks per day. You’d think that number of topics and speakers would be impossible to come up with. Yet we received over 105 submissions to our call for papers! Whittling them down was difficult, and it was painful, as we had to turn down lots of good proposals. We expect to have about 1,500 attendees for SCALE 6X. The Westin hotel will be bursting at the seams.

Everex Cloudbook — 2 pounds, $399, and coming to a Wal-Mart near you

My lack of enthusiasm for the gOS Linux distribution notwithstanding, the Everex Cloudbook — a light, small and relatively cheap laptop running the aforementioned gOS — is coming to a Wal-Mart near you on Jan. 25.

It sure looks nice. Main competition? The ASUS EeePc. WARNING: don’t click on this last link unless you enjoy annoying Flash-heavy trainwrecks). If you value not being annoyed by Flash, just go to Amazon, which is selling the ASUS for $399.

I thank Linuxdevices.com for the link, and for cluing me in to Everex’s own site (I already know about the gOS Web page).

Here’s everything Everex has to say about the laptop:

Think CloudBook

Experience the Ultimate in Mobility
9 Inches, 2 pounds, 5 hours of battery life. Surf, email, blog, IM, Skype, compute. Cloud computing makes it simple and easy for everyone.

Based on the latest gOS Rocket operating system, the ultra-mobile Everex PC comes with popular applications from Google, Mozilla, Skype, OpenOffice.org and more.

Find your $399 CloudBook at Walmart.com beginning 1/25/08.

Additional Preinstalled and Linked Software
Mozilla Firefox, gMail, Meebo, Skype, Wikipedia, GIMP, Blogger, YouTube, Xing Movie Player, RythemBox, Faqly, Facebook and OpenOffice.org 2.3 (includes WRITER, IMPRESS, DRAW, CALC, BASE)

Hardware Specifications
1.2GHz, VIA C7®-M Processor ULV, 512MB DDR2 533MHz, SDRAM, 30GB Hard Disk Drive, 7″ WVGA TFT Display (800 x 480), VIA UniChrome Pro IGP Graphics, VIA High-Definition Audio, 802.11b/g, (1) 10/100 Ethernet Port, (1) DVI-I Port, (2) USB 2.0 Ports, (1) 4-in1 Media Card Reader, (1) 1.3MP Webcam, (1) Headphone/Line-Out Port, (1) Microphone/Line-In Port, (1) Set of Stereo Speaker, (1) Touchpad, (1) 4-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery

Curious aside: Both the Everex and ASUS notebooks feature an 800 x 480 screen. Hmmmmmm……

Personally, that’s not enough screen for me. I’m chafing in 1024 x 768 and positively cramped in 800 x 600. I’ve read that the Xandros Linux OS in the ASUS has been optimized for the screen size. Given how unpolished gOS is right now, I can’t believe they’re going to do nearly as well.

We can’t seem to get the $100 laptop to cost less than $250 … but the $75 laptop is on its way

The One Laptop Per Child project hasn’t hit its target price of $100, but already one of its creators is talking about a $75 device.

There’s been a lot of blog noise lately about the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC), Asus EeePC, Everex Cloudbook and other laptops that sell for anywhere for $250 to $400 … if you can get your hands on them at all.

But this is the first I’ve heard of a planned $75 laptop being spun off of the OLPC project. There’s a new company called Pixel Qi that exhibited at CES and is run by Mary Lou Jepson, the founding chief technology officer of OLPC.

Here’s their manifesto:

What computing can be, the XO laptop was just the first step.

Pixel Qi is currently pursuing the $75 laptop, while also aiming to bring sunlight readable, low-cost and low-power screens into mainstream laptops, cellphones and digital cameras.

Spinning out from OLPC enables the development of a new machine, beyond the XO, while leveraging a larger market for new technologies, beyond just OLPC: prices for next-generation hardware can be brought down by allowing multiple uses of the key technology advances. Pixel Qi will give OLPC products at cost, while also selling the sub-systems and devices at a profit for commercial use.

More from Jepson:

I believe that looking at computers in a new, holistic, systemic way, with a clean-sheet approach to computer design – rather than incrementally increasing the horsepower of the CPU – is critical to bringing computing and Internet access to more than the 1 billion affluent who now are its beneficiaries. The key is a new generation of low-cost, low power, durable, networked computers, leveraging open-design principles.

Extensive review of the $399 Asus Eee PC laptop

Ars Technica lives up to its usual standards with the best Asus Eee PC (yep, it runs Linux) review I’ve seen.

It’s long — just keep hitting the “next page” button to see all six pages.

Writer Ryan Paul sums up:

The Asus Eee PC offers outstanding value for Linux enthusiasts and good value for a mainstream audience. The laptop brazenly defies the conventional standards of portable computing and delivers extreme mobility at an appealing price.

…

The hardware is impressive for the price, and the sheer portability of the system is mind-blowing. Despite the quality of the hardware, the cramped keyboard will be a deal-breaker for many consumers. … The low screen resolution is also disappointing, but virtual desktops and font customization make it easier to tolerate.

…

The fact that the Eee lacks an optical drive might turn off some potential buyers, but I found that network file transfers and the SD card slot were more than sufficient for my needs. … The bundled software is mostly pretty good, but the poor performance of OpenOffice.org is frustrating. Abiword provides a solid alternative, but it isn’t officially supported by Asus on the Eee.

…

The Eee PC will likely have a noticeable influence on future mobile computing development. Companies are increasingly adopting Linux in the mobile space, and Linux developers and distributors are embracing this trend and accommodating rapid development.

…

The Eee PC is a stunning example of what a hardware maker can accomplish when mixing a highly compact form factor with a custom open-source Linux platform. With the Eee PC, consumers can get a taste of the future today.

My question: What else is coming into the Eee space? Everex is planning to release a $399 laptop based on the gOS variant of Ubuntu (I’m not so impressed with the OS … review forthcoming). If only somebody can get a similar device priced at $300, then we’ll be talking. And of course there’s the Classmate PC from Intel and the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) … but who knows if or when any of these will come to the legitimate market.