Easy Peasy (Ubuntu 8.10) on a EEE PC 4GB

[LinuxMint-4]

I installed "Easy Peasy for Netbooks". If anyone is interested, this works "out of the box". "Easy Peasy for netbooks" is Ubuntu 8.10 rebranded. This means wireless worked, sound worked and flash works as well as being able to play web based radio stations.

Compared to Xandros , this is better as the wireless doesn't hiccup. The wireless works great as well as it does on my other full fledged laptopn with Ubuntu. This means that the wireless is instantly picked up and stays on.

Also I noticed that I have more hard drive space. Th EEE PC 4 G with Xandros only had about 400 MB left for space. With this it is like a bit over a Gig left.

I used Unetbootin for this. For those that haven't done this. You download Unetbootin to your Ubuntu computer. Then either you download the OS to the computer...or...have the ISO (that you want to install on the flash drive) on the computer ready . If you have the ISO already the only thing you do is to download Unetbootin.

Format your flash drive to FAT 32 (you can use a Windows machine for that part), then plug the flash drive it into your Ubuntu computer, open up Unetbootin then select the OS you want to install. Look down further and then you see where you can select the ISO...click that and look for the ISO that you want to install on your EEE PC.

Once you do that, further on the bottom you can select HARD DRIVE or USB. You want to select USB. Then hit start and Unetbootin will copy the entire OS to your flash drive.


Now to the EEE PC

After that is done, now time for the "fun". This is where I had problems. Pressing ESC did not work for me to get to the boot screen or to the bios. I needed to get there in order to be able to boot from the USB flash drive instead of the internal 4GB SSD.

F2 will get you to the BIOS, and you want to make sure the bios sees your Flash drive and activates it (be able to boot from) and you have to change the boot order to the USB first and then the 4 GB SSD.

From there, just follow the steps that it would take to to install Ubuntu normally. It is straight forward from there.

Some additions...

Activate the wireless as soon as the OS loads (you can run it live off the flash if you wanted to). If you don't want to do this then at least hook it up to a ethernet LAN while installing the OS.

You want to do this in case there are some updates needed while installing. You basically want to make sure everything works and installs without a hitch. (So if you have a password for your wireless type it in and activate it before installing...I am sure it isn't that critical...but for me I always made sure the computer was connected to the net when installing any OS).

Final

The install will take about 20 to 25 minutes. After the install is done it will ask you to (remove the "disc") and restart. (Remember that the OS thinks you installed it by a disc and not but a flash drive...no big deal).

Glitches

So once you restart without the flash drive and everything goes well, if you have encrypted wireless..you have to enter it again. (The reason is because when you entered it earlier...you were running LIVE...and it didn't save the settings..no big deal...re-enter it and it should be there anytime when you start it up again since it is now being written to the SSD.)

As with other Ubuntu installs, there is a password required to log in and another to access the wireless. On my other two laptops with Ubuntu, I was able to pair this down to require only a log in for the wireless only. I have not found how to do this yet on the "EPFN (Easy Peasy For Netbooks").

Even though this is "rebranded". Once you install it and get it running..you will see the familiar Ubuntu "splash" screen...so is isn't completely rebranded. I guess a good example of a rebrand is Linux Mint.

More on this later...

More, ...there is another minor glitch. Everytime you boot up into the OS and get it up and running it will want to "install itself". Its a minor glitch that probably can be easily resolved. But just click "QUIT" and just go on computing.