The many faces of Linux and the humble EEE

This post is mostly in response to all of the people I see dumping on the EEE or worse, using the EEE to dump on Linux. You see Windows zealots flaming it because you can’t play game X on it. You see some flaming it because it comes with Xandros; others use it to complain about distro proliferation. They are all right yet still about as wrong as people can be.

It can be funny watching some people try to get their minds wrapped around the value of Linux...

Think about it folks: you cannot run Word on your Volkswagen either but it still carried your carcass to work this morning. And the converse is true as well: Petrol on a Windows machine is….wait a minute we might be onto something here. Just kidding. The point is, they are different tools for different purposes and there is no value in blaming the other tool for not being like yourself. And I am not implying Windows users are tools…

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this will largely be a gallery of photographs showing the many different things the EEE is to us. It becomes the tool that we need and because it is smaller/lighter than other computing devices, it travels with us to more places and into different situations so it can be the tool that we need, just when we need it. Oh and it’s doing all of this on the same hardware that Microsoft had to extend to get XP to be useful.

All kidding aside the EEE is just about the most useful device for its price that I have ever used. I (and Beth) have the early 701s with the smaller screens and the minuscule storage. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, this will largely be a gallery of photographs showing the many different things the EEE is for us. To show that this is all running on the EEE, I will attempt to snap pictures of the actual computer in action with the wifes SLR. Yes I am not a professional photographer either and present the following evidence to prove it.

To start, our specs are stock EEE 701 (4g ssd, 512M ram, 7 in screen); we each have additional 8 gig HCSD card in the main memory card slot. In addition, I travel with a small cache of bootable Linux on USB and SD including:

• SystemRescueCD on USB.
• Debian Etch
• BackTrack 3 Penetration testing suite
• Backup image (a la dd + gzip) of the entire machine
• XUbuntu 8.041
• Assorted data disks

This is my constant companion when I commute to work, travel or sometimes need an extra work machine at home:

Jeffs EEE XUbuntu

Beth’s looks like so:

Beths EEE

I have several hundred free scifi and fantasy books on a stick:

ebook of Thuvia, Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, courtesy of the Gutenberg Project

Ebook reading: On my HCSD card I carry a few hundred science fiction and fantasy books from the wonderful and free Gutenberg Project Scifi Book Bundle. Install FBReader (sudo apt-get install fbreader), import a few dozen favorites and enjoy. I am just finishing the Barsoom Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

From the lighter side:

Will Spiderman get out of this one?

Comic book reading: If you are into Marvel comics you can pick up some nice disks from Amazon with usually around 500 issues (starting with #1) for around 40 bones. Each one will feature a single comic title and contain reprints in full color of every single issue, including the advertisements which were hilarious in the 60’s. All in PDF; I typically keep a few years-worth of four titles on my HCSD card, including annuals. The default PDF reader is Evince on mine and it works perfectly fine.

Graphic novels are another favorite of mine when it comes to eating commute or airline time:

Alita is a great series...

Manga/Graphic Novel reading: Install a CBR reader (comix works fine for us) and a whole world of graphic novels and manga (something I started reading since moving to San Francisco) is open to you. Perfect for that commute or even reading something when that awful romance movie is on.

Games:

Doom engine + 3000 levels = easily wasted time.

I installed Doom and pulled one of those 3000 levels for Doom CDs that were popular years ago and dropped them onto the SD card. Hours of brainless mayhem; great for destressing while riding the commuter train home.

Picking out an access point for hacking in Uplink

Another great game on the EEE is one from Introversion called Uplink. It looks and plays like no other game and can be a lot of fun.

Surprise surprise, its easy to code on Linux:

Anjuta is a very usable IDE for C and C++ development

I code for a living so it is really nice to have C/C++/Python/Perl and more available. While a lot of the time I am at home in a console-based editor such as Emacs or Vim, Anjuta (a graphical IDE) looks and works well.

EEE makes a very capable multimedia device:

A scene from 300 playing on the EEE

We travel a reasonable amount so being able to bring a few dozen movies on a USB stick can be nice.

Finally, one of the nice things about the EEE is how easy it is to boot off of many different types of media so I keep a handful of bootable sticks including:

SystemRescueCD on a stick, running GPartEd.

Puppy makes for an interesting alternative desktop.

BackTrack3 running Zenmap: Getting to know the neighbors...;)

One other very sweet thing this EEE has enabled me to do is to use video Skype to take guitar lessons from a great teach 2000 miles away. If I am at work and it’s time for a lesson I just whip out the EEE, unpack the spare Strat I keep at the office, find a spare office and away I go.

So in closing, part of the appeal is the EEE form factor, some is the price, some is running free software on it. By themselves not a big deal but together (and only together) they are mighty.

For 400 bones it is a couple of pounds of tech that can become damned near anything I need it to be, including out of sight.

Me to you.

JeffC