Eee review

[Fraser Campbell]

Got my Eee yesterday.  It is exactly as I expected - barely usable keyboard 
and tiny screen, I love it ;-)

Performance seems just fine:

* 11 seconds to X login screen on a cold boot
* openoffice writer starts in 6 seconds on a cold boot, a bit faster once
  cached
* acrobat about 4 seconds

There doesn't seem to be any way of customizing the interface (not that I've 
read the manual).  However you can run an xterm from filemanager and from 
there the rest is easy - I went with just customizing the default icewm files 
by copying /etc/X11/icewm to ~/.icewm and making a few simple edits.

There is a "desktop mode" which just means connecting an external display.  
You can hook up a VGA monitor and the external display can be run at a 
different resolution than the local display (while both displays are 
active) - for fun tonight I hooked the Eee up to my TV (37" LCD) - I set the 
TV resolution to 1024x768, while laptop remained at default (800x480 if 
memory serves), worked flawlessly first attempt without any fiddling and 
without any form of restart.

I was hoping that I could replace my 6+ pound Dell laptop with the Eee, I see 
no reason that it cannot - all I need is xterm (konsole I prefer), ssh client 
and rdesktop (for a few crappy windows apps I need access to) - all are built 
in.

The only missing piece of the puzzle is to build vpnc so that I can access 
citrix VPN, at that point Eee will be perfect for my remote access needs as 
well.

I didn't use it at work today but I think tomorrow will be the day - full size 
USB keyboard, full size VGA display and I won't know the difference.

Power input is a regular looking plug that you'd use for any electronic 
device - the plug claims 9.5V/2.315A output.

-- 
Fraser Campbell <fraser-Txk5XLRqZ6CsTnJN9+BGXg at public.gmane.org>
Georgetown, Ontario, Canada
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