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Will Mandriva run on the Asus eee pc?


yossarian
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Hey everyone,

 

For a long time now I put my eyes on the eee pc of Asus. I thought of buying one when it comes to the market (apparently on mid August, cost 200$-250$). The word says that it's going to run Xandros OS, adapted for this specific machine (the GUI is supposed to be more Windows-like for newbies). Does anyone know (or even has a guess) if Mandriva will run on it? Is the Mandriva group working on checking Mandriva's compliance with the HW? I really build on this gadget, with its price and weight I think it's going to be a blow-up, but I'd really like running Mandriva on it.

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Hmm, I read the press release I saw no mention of Xandros anywhere. It does however state that this product will be

OS: Linux/ Microsoft Windows XP compatible
I suppose it's like buying any other piece of hardware, there are no guarantees that it will run any op/sys without any problems.
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You are right, it is not stated in the press release, but I found it in a few places on the web, like this one.

 

The reason I'm asking is that on on the wiki page it says that it will run Mandriva. So is it tested by Mandriva, or is it one of those cases where it is not recommended to count on wikipedia?

Edited by yossarian
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Having read the info on the wiki page, If we are to believe it runs Xandros, then I see no reason to doubt it will run Mandriva also. If it doesn't run Mandriva well enough (the inclusion of some proprietary components within Xandros), just slap Xandros back on and sell it.

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The blanket statement of it's compatibility with Linux suggests to me that it should be friendly with just about any distribution sticking to the conventional Linux kernel. If it required a specifically modified distribution I'm sure they wouldn't just say 'Linux' on the official web site.

 

EDIT: Any idea what it will cost yet?

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The hardware specs look like vanilla intel centrino chipset with intel graphics and wlan. That stuff runs fine on most modern linux distros in my experience. I wouldn't expect any trouble with mandriva. Not sure the 7" screen is enough real estate for websurfing but it has to be better that trying to do that on your cell phone. The price is certainly right but like many mobile devices, I'm not sure what I need it for other than the coolness factor.

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From what I've read since my last post it seems that Asus is shipping the product with their own distribution, based on Xandros. While they have tested XP and certified that it will run on the device, they do not provide it with Windows. The fact that a standard copy of XP will work makes me sure that a standard copy of Mandriva will work.

 

$250 is for free. I would buy one, I just have two problems with what is otherwise an awesome device: the 7" screen is just too small and they waste some of the space around the screen where they could have squeezed in more real-estate and the battery life is supposedly only two hours? That makes no sense - with such a small screen and solid-state memory you should get way more. Heck, my 12" Powerbook gives me four hours easily. Of course, Asus is perhaps just managing expectations.

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SoulSe: But does your Powerbook cost 250$? Hell, the cheapest iPhone costs twice as much(!).

 

I think it's quite clear that Asus didn't try to develop a killer-app. They just tried to keep the price really low. So of course you can find better devices on the market, only not at this price, or even close. I think the expected performance should be somewhat correlated with the cost.

 

Having that said: regarding the screen, I totally agree it's problematic. I read somewhere it's going to be 640x480 resolution. First of all, it's no good. Second, I don't know if the VGA output will support highr resolutions. And third, I've never run Mandriva on such a low resolution. Has anyone tried it? I guess all the icons and menus become out of proportion, so I'm not sure that in that sense Mandriva will run properly on this machine.

 

And I totally agree that 7" is too small. My guess is that they had some constrain regarding the design: They couldn't make a smaller keyboard or comuter, so they are limited in how small the device can be. On the other hand they couldn't use a larger screen, maybe because of price and energy considerations. So they decided to use the free space near the screen for the microphones, and it looks really bad. At least they could use white microhones (instead of black) for the white computer!

Edited by yossarian
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SoulSe: But does your Powerbook cost 250$? Hell, the cheapest iPhone costs twice as much(!).
I was just mentioning my Powerbook to illustrate what battery life can be achieved in a much larger and more capable device. Surely if my Powerbook can do 4 hours a tiny device with solid state memory should be able to do much better? My iPaq gives many hours and the screen isn't much smaller than the eee. I wasn't comparing price or anything, obviously for $250 the eee is in a league of its own - but it's surprising it can't do better battery life.

 

Having that said: regarding the screen, I totally agree it's problematic. I read somewhere it's going to be 640x480 resolution. First of all, it's no good. Second, I don't know if the VGA output will support highr resolutions. And third, I've never run Mandriva on such a low resolution. Has anyone tried it? I guess all the icons and menus become out of proportion, so I'm not sure that in that sense Mandriva will run properly on this machine.

 

And I totally agree that 7" is too small. My guess is that they had some constrain regarding the design: They couldn't make a smaller keyboard or comuter, so they are limited in how small the device can be. On the other hand they couldn't use a larger screen, maybe because of price and energy considerations. So they decided to use the free space near the screen for the microphones, and it looks really bad. At least they could use white microhones (instead of black) for the white computer!

I think the pictures we have seen so far are just of prototype models. I'm sure by the time we see eees on store shelves they will have sorted out the looks a little - for example there is a Windows key on the current pictures - I'm sure that'll be gone by the time it goes to market. Hopefully it'll lose some of its other ugliness as well.

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I think the pictures we have seen so far are just of prototype models. I'm sure by the time we see eees on store shelves they will have sorted out the looks a little - for example there is a Windows key on the current pictures - I'm sure that'll be gone by the time it goes to market. Hopefully it'll lose some of its other ugliness as well.

 

I join your wishes.

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