30 May 2009

Eee PC 901 go: Nice hardware, bad software

Yesterday I got my new Eee PC 901 go with 16GB ssd harddrive and Linux. The battery lifetime is great, the hardware in general is really nice.
But the software really really sucks. I have no idea why Asus is doing this (actually, I have an idea).
Ok, so what is the problem with that software thing on the Eee PC?
The first impression is that they tried their best to make it look like XP. This IS annoying. With all the innovation that they could have made, they chose to imitate the one system that Linux users don't want to see. The second impression is that the software I want is not there, that updates are missing (2009/06 and still Firefox 2.0 ????) and that the only configuration Asus wants you to do is changing the background color. One thing to note is that the screen is really small and a small window theme (icewm is used along with kde and gnome applications) would be good. Instead a big theme is used along with a big cursor and big fonts. There are signs of a full desktop mode (a start script, tutorials on the internet), but the Asus homepage states very clearly: Only one desktop mode is available.
So I guess that I will investigate further, if eeebuntu isn't much better. And the next time I will try to buy at system76 , if they start to deliver to Germany ...
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