ERD50,
I'm running what came with the ASUS. I have 1.2Gig of free space remaining and a 4G SD card installed. I tried using the control panel to do things - it is giberish to me.
Do you have a link for what you installed?
One of the problems I had with the pre-installed Linux was, after I ran the suggested updates, it ran out of space on the 4GB system flash drive. That seemed crazy, and the fixes were a lot of gibberish to me. I also found out that many of the supplied programs are locked down, and it is difficult to remove them (maybe the companies paid to have them installed for advertising purposes?). That didn't make sense to me when you have a very limited system disk.
Ubuntu is very open, as Linux should be. I have not experimented that much, and when you run into problems, the fixes sometimes are buried in geek-speak (even though the fix may be simple). But it is fast and efficient it seems.
So, for Ubuntu, go here:
Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu
Download Ubuntu Nebook Remix | Ubuntu
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Installation/FromImgFiles
I did the install by downloading the file (overnight) on my iMac, and following the terminal commands to get the file checksum verified and copied to the USB thumb drive. Don't let the commands scare you, they are not as bad as they look.
Once it is on the USB thumb drive, you can boot your netbook from it (hold esc or F2 when booting), and you can try it out right from there, w/o making any changes to your computer or internal drives at all. But changes will not be saved. Then just choose install - the installer is easy.
You can always go back to the original by using the start up disks that came with your netbook (I have an external USB CD/DVD drive, so this is easy for me).
I've loaded a few programs and utilities, and I've got 1.3GB of the 4GB free. I have not used much of the 16GB space yet.
IMO, the Linux community needs more people to cut through the geek-speak. I think they are scaring users away. I find Linux easy to use, but when you need some info they talk in their language, seldom reference the GUI. I guess that makes sense for them, but they need translators for the rest of us. I've literal seen someone list 25 lines of terminal commands to do something, and later someone says something like "can't I just check the box in the window for that preference setting", answer is "Oh yeah, I guess that does the same thing".
If I get into this more, I'll start posting on those forums, but that will be a while.
I also tried the earlier version of the Eee-specific Ubuntu (eeebuntu.org), but the word is that this 9.04 Ubuntu version handles the eeePC so well native-ly (everything seems to work for me), that there is no need for the specialized version, and you can avoid waiting for them to do their add-ons. eeebuntu is still on 8.10.
I also set the preferences for "standard" desktop - more like a "regular" computer desktop. That gives you the option for multiple desktops, which helps keep things organized an uncluttered on a small screen.
-ERD50
