Asus eee 901 mini notebook
Ubuntu Full install | Ubuntu full install 2 | Ubuntu install to SD Card | Simple install via USB
Asus eee 901
The Asus eee 901 was recently released and is slowly becoming available in the UK after several weeks delay, primarily due to Intel's under production of the new Diamondville Atom processor. The 901 replaces the 900 which was very similar to the 700 series but came with a 8.9" screen instead the smaller 7" lcd. There a a lot of things right with the 901, good functionality, 3 USB ports, 1.3m webcam, power saving modes and above all, an excellent battery life. The eee 901 comes with a choice of operating systems, either windows xp or a simplified Xandros Linux system. The XP version comes with a 12gb solid state drive and the linux version with a 20gb ssd. The performance is very good and users will undoubtedly be please with the 6+ hours of battery life the six cell 6600mah pack gives. Although the customized Xandros system is very good, you may want to install a fully blown linux distribution on the 901 such as the latest Ubuntu release - Hardy Heron 8.04. This is perfectly feasible, but will take a certain amount of fiddling around.
Installing Ubuntu 8.04 onto the eee 901.
[Go here for a slightly more detailed explanation]
As this is a portable unit, it would be best to use ubuntu's 'Alternate' installation iso as this supports full hard disk encryption. Should you lose your 901 you can be confident any data stored on it will be secure (providing you choose a strong password). We will also assume you have a working Linux pc with an internet connection.
- Download Ubuntu 8.04 - be sure to tick the 'Alternate' box
- Connect a USB stick drive - min 1gb
- Install 'syslinux' on your main pc - sudo aptitude install syslinux
- Create a boot sector on the USB drive - sudo syslinux /dev/sdX (X is the name and number of the device). Set the boot flag for the device
- Find the 'isolinux' directory on the iso you just downloaded and copy the contents to the root of the USB drive. Rename the file isolinux.cfg to syslinux.cfg
- Download the initrd.gz and vmlinuz files from HERE
- Copy the two files to a new folder on the stick called 'install'
- Copy the downloaded alternate iso to the root of the drive
- Plugin the usb stick to the eee, turn on, and boot from the usb device
You can use THIS guide to help you with the install process but remember to set the /boot partition and root partition on the 4gb ssd and the /home partition on the 16gb ssd. Also dont set a swap partition. You will get a warning telling you that one is not set, but this can be safely ignored.
Once the above is completed you should now have a bootable ubuntu system on your eee pc. However the first thing you'll notice is that certain things dont work such as wifi, hotkeys, suspend and sound. To fix these problems you'll need to install a customised kernel from www.array.org/ubuntu/. To do this follow the instuctions from the kernels creator HERE.
You should now have a functioning system with Ubuntu 8.04 !
