Hackmosphere

Ok, I finally got one – an Asus Eee 901…  While at the ShmooCon (back in Feb 2008) I saw a ton of people running around with Asus Eee mini laptops.  The last straw came when I saw the Remote-Exploit crowd running a version of BackTrack on their little units.  So… I saved up, waited a little bit, and finally grabbed a newer one for myself.  Yesterday I got the 901 I ordered from NewEgg, as well as the 2G of RAM to immediately max it out.

Poor thing wasn’t five hours old before I killed Xandros and installed (after much wrestling) Linux Mint 4.0 KDE CE.  There’s just something I don’t quite like about giant icons : / (image from theo.netsons.org).  Anyway…  Most of the write ups I was following were pretty much on the money for creating a bootable USB stick – but the 901 has some issues with recognizing the results of most of those efforts.  And, the 901 also does not have a built-in optical drive so a bootable USB is one of two serious methods for alternative OS installation (SD might be another).  You can, however, add an external USB optical drive and say to hell with all this nonsense : ).

Two things I learned:
1. Use unetbootin to create your bootable USB stick – it saves a LOT of work for you and gets it right most of the time.  To increase your successes grab the Linux ISO you want to used as your USB OS and point unetbootin to it – don’t let it download it for you (it’s an option).
2. There are some ISOs that are not ready for USB primetime.  Don’t get hung up on an ISO if it fails to install properly – go with another one (or better yet, READ the list of ISOs supported by unetbootin).  My lesson was that the finalized version of Linux Mint 5.0 does not install well on USB, but 4.0 does.

Got almost everything working.  Just have some lingering issues with Linux Mint recognizing the ethernet port, wireless and sound.  Tell ya how it goes when I experience complete success.  Till then, I have an Alfa Networks (bought the AWUS036H from SimpleWifi @ ShmooCon) wireless USB device working fairly well.  But I am toying around with the thought of replacing the wireless module with one that is far more BackTrack 3 friendly – just so I don’t HAVE to have an external wifi device…

[Updated @ 1619 - same day] Well I’ll be.  The Ubuntu crowd has been hammering the heck out of the 901 already. Which is nice, since Linux Mint is a derivative flavor of Ubuntu.  Two good links for LM / Ubuntu Eee 901 fans are provided below.  According to the infos I have read – all the problems I experienced above are fixed.  Now, let’s see if I can replicate their successes.

www.array.org/ubuntu/
- Custom 901 / 1000 / 1000H kernel for Hardy Heron.

wiki.eeeuser.com/hardy_on_eee901?s=901
- Wiki on all the things needed to be done to get Hardy Heron – with all devices working.