Asus Eeepc OS on Acer???

Discussion in 'Asus Eee PC' started by ASPECTS, Feb 20, 2009.

  1. ASPECTS

    ASPECTS

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    I have spent a long time getting some (Windows) educational software running on the Linux Eeepcs using Wine. It took months of tweaking to get them working well as you might imagine. Now, however, I'd like to try the same setup on the Acer and because the OS is Linpus as opposed to Xandros I've had to start all over again from scratch. So far, results have been much less successful because the programs don't run well so well and I haven't been able to make them run (via Wine) from the standard Acer desktop.

    Now I did notice on another post that someone had tried the Eeepc variant of Ubuntu on the Aspire so I was wondering if I could simply lift a disc image of the Eeepc's Xandros from the Asus and stick it on the Acer successfully.

    I have cloned the Eeepcs successfully by running them with Puppy Linux from a stick and copying the partitions with Gparted and I imagine the same approach would work with the Acer but when I run the Acer from Puppy Gparted shows that one of the partitions is a locked Linux swap partition so getting it off might be difficult.

    What I need to know is :

    Is there any reason why the Xandros system shouldn't work on the Acer?

    Assuming I manage to reformat the hard disc prior to putting on Xandros would the Acer factory recovery disc still put everything back if Xandros turned out to be a failure (ie would it restore that swap partition as well as the other partition?)

    My Acer is the 120GB HDD model and the Asus machines are SSD - would this be a problem if I simply 'lift' a disc image?

    I know this seems like an odd approach but it would save lots of time. The Eeepcs are nice machines but the Acer screen and keyboard are much better.

    Graeme
     
    ASPECTS, Feb 20, 2009
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  2. ASPECTS

    GvidoR

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    If you would install Xandros, most or maybe even all hardware will work because all netbooks use pretty much the same hardware. Yes, the recovery disk will restore everything, including the swap partition. I don't think that there would be a problem to 'lift' a disc image because SSD uses the same file system (ext3) that it would use on a hard drive. It would be different for Windows because the Hard Drive is NTFS and the SSD should be FAT32 for the best performance.
     
    GvidoR, Feb 21, 2009
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  3. ASPECTS

    ASPECTS

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    I'll give it a go! As long as there is an easy way back with the recovery disc there's nothing to lose - hopefully!

    One thing I found odd when booting with Puppy Linux was that I couldn't access files on the Acer drive using the Puppy mounting facility and although Gparted could 'see' the partitions of the machine it shows the swap partition as locked so I might not be able to delete it prior to copying over the Asus disc image.

    Graeme
     
    ASPECTS, Feb 22, 2009
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  4. ASPECTS

    ASPECTS

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    I have installed the Asus Xandros OS, complete with my own tweaks (Wine etc) on the Acer and I'm surprised to find that it is working 99% perfectly! Even the webcam works!The only two snags are that wireless is not working (not a major problem at this stage because these machines are destined for use in schools where we would actually prefer to have wireless disabled) and also a hyper sensitive touchpad.

    The pad behaviour is odd because the arrow disappears off the screen when you take your finger off and reappears when you touch it! I've slowed it down as far as I can via the Asus touchpad settings and it's just about acceptable at the very slowest setting. However - when you have a program window open it will suddenly minimise itself as you brush over the touchpad, which would suggest that the arrow is reverting (invisibly) to the taskbar.

    I'm going to try an image from a different model of Asus (this is the 701SD 8Gb model) because the Asus does use different touchpads so the OS from an earlier model might work better.

    Does anyone have any idea how I could tame the touchpad - bearing in mind that we're now working in Xandros (Debian)?

    Graeme :eek:
     
    ASPECTS, Feb 22, 2009
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  5. ASPECTS

    bushido

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    Dunno about Xandros. Tried Ubuntu? I had quite a few windows programs working with Ubuntu on AA1, it is also Debian-based, haven't any problems with touchpad (except it changes screens when no windows open). Wireless works great too (but gotta restart if you kill it via software). Installed via a 1 gig USB stick, went without a hitch (just took close to an hour, and had to disable wireless driver to get the wireless to work, lol). Wouldn't use on a SSD system though.
     
    bushido, Feb 23, 2009
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  6. ASPECTS

    ASPECTS

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    Haven't tried Ubuntu but might give it a go if I don't get the touchpad working well. Which version of Wine did you use with Ubuntu? :roll:
     
    ASPECTS, Feb 23, 2009
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  7. ASPECTS

    bushido

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    The version of Wine I use is the one from the repository, and update it every time I see it in the updates list... So, give or take a version, the newest one :D .

    You'd need a 1 GB memory stick though. Intrepid Ibex has all the drivers, a couple of minor bugs (all of which can be fixed easily, if they bother you), and wireless switch button doesn't work for me at all... Not that I ever use it though. Touchpad works great, minimizing panels (I have them set up in L-shape) and you have lots of screen space. Here's a link for ya: Ubuntu Aspire One Community Documentation, guide and fixes for a lot of stuff. Use 8.10, I wouldn't trust 9.04 (yet, too early), and you can easily upgrade when that comes out.
     
    bushido, Feb 25, 2009
    #7
  8. ASPECTS

    tnr3euser

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    ASPECTS,

    I wonder how different the 701SD is from the other models, because the image for a 700 2G surf or 701 4G do not work on an AAO SSD model. I get some kind of blinking black screen, grrrr. I am yet to try the USB recovery image from the provided DVD though, as I too have edited my Xandros to a format that I would like to retain. Is the AAO SSD model so much different from the HDD one?

    Edit* ASPECTS, is your 701SD atom based? You think that matters?
     
    tnr3euser, Apr 2, 2009
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  9. ASPECTS

    Arnie-75

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    I also tried Xandros on the Aspire ONE and it worked fine, even the touchpad. But the battery-icon was missing. :(
     
    Arnie-75, Apr 2, 2009
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  10. ASPECTS

    tnr3euser

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    How odd. My Xandros recovery disk has the code A003 on it. I borrowed my sister's disk that has a code of A089, but haven't had a chance to use it yet. Arnie, what eeepc was yours? Is your AAO the hdd version or ssd? My 700 and 701 are celeron based. My sister's 900 is also a celeron, but came with a newer recovery disk. Do you think I'd need to use the 901 version? I'd really like to get this working on the AAO.
     
    tnr3euser, Apr 3, 2009
    #10
  11. ASPECTS

    Arnie-75

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    Yes, it was the 901GO version. It worked perfect BUT the battery icon was missing. This made it unusable. :(
     
    Arnie-75, Apr 3, 2009
    #11
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