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.
