Kthx. (See? I can do Lolcatspeak too)

Apparently Asus has removed the PCI-e connector from all the new batches.

The bastards.

(And no: You didn't void your warranty. Asus said the sticker is there just for laughs)

Yeah from what I read there should've been a connector there if I had it. Just a big 'ole empty bay. (Though now I know where to solder my USB bluetooth dongle guts if I want internal bluetooth)

Great to hear it's as easy as advertised! I stumbled across the info a few days ago when researching rumors of a 2008 Eee desktop PC. Maybe the laptop makes more sense (especially with NAS in the house for media work).

My next project is to get a copy of Dyne:bolic linux <http://www.dynebolic.org/> onto an SD card and try booting it on my friend's Eee. That might just cause me to ditch my current Mac and finally learn more linux.

And slip, I'm planning to continue with Maemo in the future (assuming Maemo's planning the same); the Eee might just be a perfect dev box for my limited needs. Or the new Shuttle kpc, or the Eee desktop, or Linutop 2, or ???...

My thoughts on the Eee are here:

http://www.maemopeople.org/index.php...ook_nokia_n810

I'd agree with Hedgecore's assertions. If it had built-in Bluetooth it'd be more useful for me, and I'll use it anywhere I need a small laptop (where my work 15" Dell would be too big/heavy to carry - i.e. pretty much anywhere ;-)).

However, my N810 goes with me anywhere I might need Internet access, and is a much more "interesting" device, IMHO.

If what I read is true, this is actually for the better.
It seems the original miniPCIe slot was was wired in such a way as to be almost unusable, because if anything was plugged in it the 4GB of flash memory soldered on the mainboard were disabled. Apparently it could only be used to replace (not *extend*) the onboard storage, which sounds pretty dumb.

"Modders" actually prefer it the way it is now, because without the connector there is more room left inside the unit to fit additional electronics, and more free power & USB connectors.

By stripping the casing of regular USB gizmos and trimming their innards, it's impressive what some guys have crammed into that space : USB hub plus flash memory plus GPS etc..

I'd rather buy the s.book or Packard Bell EasyNote XS / Nanobook / Cloudbook.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RlMN...eature=related
http://www.engadget.com/2007/09/03/p...7-inch-laptop/

Better than eee:
1.2GHZ, Video chipset is better, DVI out, bluetooth built in (ready for bt mouse unlike eee, replaceable 30GB HDD, VOIP phone/module for sip or skype thats expandable, Webcam module and they are talking about a GPS module that will be released, the easynote version of this mini-laptop has the mouse pad on the top so you can use it like a UMPC, the gap makes it easy to type without a table as shown in the video below, battery life 5 hours with wi-fi off, get it at walmart for $399 on Jan 25.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu6CtT-NAd4

Only thing better in the 4G eee is the SSD(only comparing to that model because its the same price), but I'd rather have a slower IDE expandable/larger 30GB harddrive and have the option of later adding in a SSD drive when the prices drop, although SSD drives read fast their write speeds are extremely slow. I guess people might also like the look of the eee better but aesthetics don't mean anything to me, although the size is identical which is nice.

I now have Ubuntu 7.10 installed after following the guide referenced earlier.

I booted live and had issues with the wired ethernet connection. I used the cable connected to the Xbox (great media center) and had the EEE sitting in front of the TV (talk about awkward, my knees are killing me from squatting in front of it). No dice. The girlfriend wanted to watch a movie and was already losing her patience with me (seriously, I'm fun to live with) so I grabbed a spare network cable and did it from the kitchen table - - cept this second cable worked. Which is weird because the Xbox works on the other cable just fine. Anyway, with Voodoo magic rife in the air, I added Wifi support with MadWifi and it worked fine. Knowing that if it worked now I'd most likely have a usable Ubuntu install, I went ahead.

After entering the install and picking mostly default options, I pooched the 4 partitions for the internal 4GB SSD and made one large ext2 one. ext2 is recommended over ext3 because there's less write cycles (though it'd take years of continuous writes to kill the memory.) A short install cycle later and it was time to reboot.

I rebooted into Ubuntu, modified the window dragging behaviour again in gconf-editor, and installed the MadWifi drivers again. It kept asking for the Gutsy CDROM so I disabled the CDROM in Synaptic on the repositories screen and that solved the problem. I'm now online. (Woo!)

Performance seems okay so far though I've really only used the command prompt and the web. Firefox takes 2 seconds to open.

More after I get stuff installed.

So this thing has an atheros based wifi? That's one more advantage wrt the tablet, since madwifi supports packet injection perfectly, while the closed source driver of the tablet's adapter doesn't and probably never will (since there's no "business case" for it).

Correct, it's Atheros based. I admit, the second I saw that I thought about aircrack. (Seriously for 'woah cool it works' purposes only.)

I found a script people were recommending be run post install. Basically it

a.) Updates your new Ubuntu install
b.) Installs WiFi drivers (mine disappeared after I did a system update)
c.) Turns off a lot of logging to reduce writes to disk
d.) Repairs suspend/resume/shutdown
e.) Enables the microphone

Worked fine, wifi works again now after using this.

I enabled full on desktop effects. Wobbly windows work, though there's some 'checkering' when redrawing them. I'm going to do compiz now.

*Edit: I decided against compiz. Some issues with the webcam and other things. Speaking of which, I'll go get the webcam going now instead.