I have to say that I was slightly disappointed by the 8.04.1 version of Ubuntu-eee. I know I blogged about how the Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu would probably be ideal for netbooks, but now that I’ve actually played around with it I feel differently. The 901’s 9″ screen is big enough to use the regular UI, and having even the smallest little popup window be maximized bugged the hell out of me.

That’s why I decided to go ‘back’ to my old setup with regular Ubuntu made ‘eee-friendly’ using the array.org kernel. I put the word ‘back’ between quotes in that last sentence because this also allowed me to go with the newer 8.10 version of Ubuntu (Intrepid Ibex). It may not be as easy as installing Ubuntu eee, but I found it to be well worth the extra effort.
More Installing Ubuntu 8.10 on the Eee-pc 901

Since I wrote a post asking for “Asus Eee-PC 901 OS recommendations” a while ago, I’ve actually tried three of the five options I mentioned in that post. OSX isn’t a serious option for me, mostly because I don’t want my netbook to run illegal software. An ‘nLited’ version of XP would probably boot faster and run a bit smoother, but it would still need regularly updated firewall and anti-virus software. The three options I did try each have their own merits and flaws.

Here are my experiences so far, completely biased and laid out as a table similar to the kind you’ll find in real, professional reviews…
More My Eee-PC OS experiences so far

Windows XP was slowish, and I didn’t want to deal with virus scanner updates, etc. XEPC was great, but in simple mode it wasn’t quite a real operating system, whereas in full desktop mode it didn’t work so well. So I decided to try Ubuntu. To me, Ubuntu’s Netbook Remix seems like the ideal user interface to run on netbooks, but for starters I decided to give ‘Ubuntu Eee” a try. Here’s how I went about it.
More Another week, another OS: Setting up Ubuntu on the Eee-PC 901