RND(tech)

The Asus Eee PC comes with most of the basic tools the average sysadmin needs for remote console access to his/her servers: krdc (for VNC and Remote Desktop), xterm (command line for ssh or telnet; press ctrl+alt+t), but it's missing VMware server console. Unfortunately for Xandros Eee PC users it's distributed as an RPM. However, with a quick apt-get of alien (and some dependencies), converting it to a compatible .deb is easy! Don't forget to read my previous post about adding comunity repositories (and pinning your system).

1. download the RPM from VMware's site: http://vmware.com/download/server/. You want the Linux client package only. Don't worry about registering. No serial number is required for the client package.

2. sudo apt-get install alien
This will prompt for the installation of dependencies (about 13). Answer 'Yes' to install them.

3. sudo alien --scripts VMware-server-console-1.0.4-5629.i386.rpm
This will result in a .deb file of the same name.

4. sudo dpkg --install vmware-server-console_1.0.4-56529_i386.deb
Once the pacakge is installed, I went back and uninstalled alien and its dependencies. You can leave them around if you like (at a cost of 25MB of storage).

5. sudo /usr/bin/vmware-config-server-console.pl
This will do a quick config for the server console. You can now run /usr/bin/vmware-server-console and access your VMware server intances!

The same method would probably work for the full server installation. You'll need to register for your free serial number. I didn't due to the small storage capacity and limited hardware (base Eee PC 701 only has 512MB of RAM). The Eee would need a slightly better CPU before I'd run virtualized OSes on it, but it makes for a great remote console to a more powerful system. Enjoy.

After several hours of beating my head against the wall with pcsx, I finally switched over to pSX and got PSX emulation working under Xandros on the Eee PC. I was trying to get pcsx to work because it's in the community repositories, but alas, it has memory card file issues with anyhing BUT the included HLE BIOS, which of course, prevents you from playing anything really good like FF VII . No overclocking or upgrades were made to the basic 701 model.

1. In order to get pSX to work, you need to have the additional repositories configured. Follow the Eee PC User Wiki article on Adding Additional Repositories. PLEASE don't forget to do the part about PINNING YOUR SYSTEM. This will prioritize the Asus "official" versions of the packages over the user contributions. If you don't you may make your system very unstable.

2. Next, download the Linux package from the official pSX website and then do "sudo apt-get install libgtkglext1" from the command line. That was the only dependency you should be missing from the base install of Xandros on the Eee PC.

3. Once that's done, follow the prompts to point to the BIOS (sorry, no help from me here) and a memory card file for at least slot 1. There's one requirement for the Sound options to prevent that stuttering. Set the latency to 64.1 ms and the XA latency to 40.1 ms (double the defaults). Any other stuttering should be due to a slow SD card, but even my cheap 1GB card (Transcend) managed to make it through the opening FMV and first fight scene at acceptable frame rates. Also under Sound, I have Reverb, Sync sound, and Interpolate on.

4. Under Graphics, you can have Bilinear interpolation on (for smoothing out those pixels, although at the expense of some blurriness and speed). I also turned on the Status icons and set the Full screen mode to 16:10. Nice. Pcsx couldn't even do full screen for me, although it did have lots of scaling options.



For those interested in ripping their PSX CDs to bin/cue format, you can use the following command line example in your terminal:

cdrdao read-cd --read-raw --datafile my_game_rip.bin --device ATAPI:0,0,0 --driver generic-mmc-raw my_game_rip.toc

Recently, I obtained the new ASUS 701, aka the eeePC. I have the 4G model (512MB of RAM, with the camera). Everyone's first reaction is that it's small and that the keyboard suffers because of it. I don't have giant hands, but it is awkward to type on. It's the opposite extreme of the problem the Macbooks have with the keys being spaced apart. These keys are tiny and tightly packed. The screen is also a little small, but you really don't notice on anything but web surfing. Outside of that, everything is fast, due partly to the SSD (solid state drive). Boot times are as advertised (under 15 seconds). The battery life is average or as-expected. I almost expected more, but because of the small internal storage and being a portable device, the wireless network is usually on. Don't worry about the 900Mhz Celeron CPU or the small storage though. It's not really designed for replacing your primary PC. The small screen and storage defeats CPU intensive video tasks.

I read just about everything there is about replacing the included XandrOS with the "easy" user interface. I don't mind it. I actually enjoy it since it keeps me from trying to push this thing past what it's designed for. The more advanced things I would use it for are really sysadmin type remote access, which I painfully do on the command line. Now it'll be more painful with the small keyboard, but the portability and the short boot time outweigh that. The XandrOS uses IceWM and some custom UI stuff done by ASUS, making for more of a smartphone/PDA style experience when choosing your next application. However, once that's out of the way, the windows and controls look like your basic Windows XP and almost certainly intentional. Even updating the system software insists upon reboots after every install!

The first thing I noticed was that re-joining the wireless network is not automatic and it was a little confusing to have the two wireless icons in the system tray. One is really for wireless, the other is for network interfaces in general. Once that was out of the way, the "Add/Remove Programs" made sense. Nothing populates there unless you are online. Why? Well, it's more of a software update than an Add/Remove, so be sure to be online before running it. I ran it (January 18, 2008) and there were a few updates like Skype and the BIOS, which I did. You'll get a new application called EeeAP which is rumored to be for wireless mesh networking, but there's little on that. On that note however, there's checkboxes in all the right places for sharing your existing internet connection with others. This isn't always obvious on other distros.

I doubt I'll be replacing XandrOS with WinXP or some other Linux. First of all the SSD lifespan isn't the same as a spinning disk and I don't care to push it. Plus, Asus customized this OS to work with the hardware and I don't fear Linux. Strangely, they included Anti-Virus, but I think that's for more WinXP user cross-over hand-holding. I disabled it from startup, but I didn't remove it. Asus also included UnionFS for the root partition. This allows them to have a base image on a non-writeable partition. Any root partition changes are not made to the image, but to what's left of the SSD. You'll get 1.4G of useable drive. This non-traditional method means software updates use up the base image's space, plus the updated program takes up space. Software "removals" just kill a pointer to the base image, so you don't really free up any space at all. More than likely, it'll take up more space just to make that reference. Confusing? Not really. You just have to undertand that the drive available to you is really just keeping track of changes since a starting point.

On to more useful information! I did follow the ASUS eeePC wiki article on adding additional repositories. PLEASE do yourself a favor and listen to their suggestions on configuring "pinning". I didn't hose this system, but it's I've experienced it in other Linux adventures. Let the Asus "official" repositories win in a dependency battle. The http://xnv4.xandros.com/xs2.0/upkg-srv2 repository does not have a public key, which isn't well explained on the wiki. Just ignore the errors, don't forget to do a "sudo apt-get update" afterwards, and reboot. I didn't reboot and almost through the eeePC against a wall when fceultra kept segfaulting. After the reboot, everything was fine and Spy Hunter came right up

By the way, that's done via the command line. Press CTRL+ALT+T to get a shell. It's nothing to write home about. Just a basic shell. I did find it nice that krdc (the KDE client for remote desktop and VNC) are readily there. I configured a PPTP VPN client easily in the network configuration, but unfortunately has no options for custom routes (so not ALL of my traffic goes through the VPN like web surfing). Also, nslookup and dig and host are missing. I'm not sure why, but ping and traceroute resolve names too, so I used those.

I haven't done much else, but poking around in the Messenger app (which is just Pidgin) and the file manager, I'm amazed at how Windows XP-like they made this thing look. Again, I'm sure it's to make newbies feel comfortable. The system tray is a little over-populated (another XP-ism) and I really need to read more on making my own shortcuts. I could do without individual big-button shortcuts to each of the Google Apps, and replace them with krdc and the terminal.

Just before the holiday I obtained a TomTom One 3rd Edition. It's my first of the recent portable GPS systems. So, while I can't really compare against current devices, I have owned several of the PC/Laptop and PDA based solutions.

First off, I had the "white screen of death issue", described here: http://www.tomtomforums.com/showthread.php?t=5291. Tech-support was prompt and efficient in handling my issue. Luckily I called it in just before the Christmas holiday and I had a return unit delivered just before New Year's.

With that out of the way, let me say, this is a great unit for a great price. First off, the screen is great. It's bright enough to be seen, even in bright daylight. The speaker is loud enough to be heard, even in louder cars like a Jeep. The battery lasts for several hours, although the lack of power switchover sensing was pointed out to me. What does this mean? Well, some GPS units, when plugged into the car's power outlets, will know when the car has been turned off so that the GPS unit will automatically shut off and not run out of battery power. I don't really care, nor did I even notice until it was pointed out to me. This IS a portable unit after all. By the way, it's TINY! Portability is really paramount here. The design is great, so it stands without mounting almost anywhere in my cars. Oh, and they do a great job with maximizing the screen real estate. I haven't taken it on long trips, but the navigation is great where I've taken it so far. I did notice that the auto-zoom feature is great when you don't care about getting a really zoomed out view. I like the big picture zoom when taking long drives. However, this unit auto-zooms back to about a 1/4 mile level after a few seconds. Lastly, the GPS unit is FAST. It calculates (and re-calculates) routes quickly, finds the satellite signals quickly, and is one of the few that receives good satellite signal for me indoors as well as in the car when not placed directly under the windshield.

TomTom is known for being user friendly, and it is. Everything was easy to read, easy to find and very intuitive. Practically no help or manual is necessary. Maps and POIs for North America and Guam are built in (for when I drive to Guam) and the TomTom comes with software for Mac and PC (but you'll never really need it). There are no fancy extras like MP3 or video playback, but lets leave that for the devices that should be doing that. I give the TomTom One 3rd Edition a 4 out of 5!