Table des matières

eeeXubuntu

eeeXubuntu is a custom version of the Xubuntu 7.10 Live CD with fully-integrated hardware support, including native wireless drivers, functioning Ethernet support, tweaks for low-resolution desktop environments, and other miscellaneous fixes. Wherever possible, these changes are incorporated using custom .deb packages rather than spewing assorted files all over post-install.

(Screenshot)

The goal of this project is to maintain a easy-to-install Xubuntu Live CD image for the eeePC, allowing for a reliable base Xubuntu install. One strong advantage of development for the eeePC is a common hardware platform shared by all users. (Those who are missing a miniPCI slot may, of course, disagree.)

If you're just looking for an easy way to get Xubuntu installed on your eeePC, welcome. Hit up the eeeXubuntu forum, ask questions and feel free to help out.

A broader goal of this project is to assist the Ubuntu community in supporting the eeePC hardware, with an eye towards other Dynabook-like form factors like Everex's Cloudbook and the OLPC XO-1.

See it in action

Download it!

Please use the torrent if you can, you'd be surprised how much bandwidth hosting a 500mb+ iso can burn.

Installation instructions

There are two different ways of installing eeeXubuntu. One is to use a Live CD and an external CD drive. If you have an external drive, this is probably the easiest way.

However, for users without an external drive , a program is included on the Live CD itself to create a bootable USB flash drive (the Cruzer u3 line is not compatible, due to special partitioning). Overall, the process is:

  1. Download the latest eeeXubuntu release, and burn it onto a CD-R to create a traditional bootable Live CD.
  2. Use this CD to boot a typical workstation and create the USB flash drive installer.
  3. Finally, use the USB flash drive installer to install Xubuntu on your eeePC.

Either way, once you have a way of booting the eeePC, the process is the same.

Note: if you have VMWARE on your workstation you can create a blank VM and boot the ISO in the blank VM instead of burning a CD.

Note 2: If you have a Surf 2G, you may run into problems installing.

Detailed USB installer instructions

(installing directly from a CD? Skip ahead.)

Although these directions refer to a USB solid-state flash drive, any USB mass storage device like an external hard drive can be used. The only firm requirement is that ~600mb of free space is required for installation files.

sudo fdisk -l

This command lists all mass storage devices on the workstation and it should be clear which are the native hard disk(s) and which the USB device (the USB will be last).

Remove your flash drive and press <enter> to continue

It will then “attempt to disable automount”: if that works, it will ask you to

Please insert your flash drive now

at which point it should detect it. Hence running the script as follows is probably the best method for most users:

sudo /cdrom/mkusbinstall.sh --autodetect

sudo mount eeeXubuntu.iso /cdrom/ -o loop

cd /cdrom/
sudo /cdrom/mkusbinstall.sh --autodetect

Note: The mkusbinstall.sh script was written to run from a running instance of the liveCD (probably also an installed Xubuntu desktop). While it may work on a non-Xubuntu system, it may or may not work. The following issues were discovered running this method from a Gentoo box:

Can the following be adapted for eeeXubuntu? http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/09/28/usb-ubuntu-710-gutsy-gibbon-install/ It allows for persistent install of ubuntu on USB. Key files missing from eeeXubuntu CD making the procedure fail. -ucffool

Booting and beginning the install

Once you have created your installation medium of choice, contine the installation process.

Notes

Upgrading from a previous eeeXubuntu version

See this page for detailed info

So, Xubuntu... Now what?

eeeXubuntu is intentionally picky about including tweaks that, in reality, many users may find useful. Beacuse it is based on Xubuntu, it follows the Ubuntu guidelines on inclusion of additional software packages, and is missing some pretty neat stuff. (aka Skype videochat)

And of course, tweaking is oh-so-fun, and every pixel is oh-so-valuable.

Notes

echo 1 > /proc/acpi/asus/wlan

After, double check that your wireless light is on and reboot. Your wireless should work now.

Behind the scenes

Until I can finish more complete documentation, here is a rough changelog:

Install other Desktops

Since this is pretty much a typical Xubuntu installation, you can quite easily install another flavour of desktop (With respect that the installation will take up more room on the SSD)

To install either startup synaptic and search for Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Edubuntu or other. So far much succes is reported with ubuntu-desktop.

To install via shell

sudo apt-get install ubuntu-desktop

you will be asked if you want to download everything, and proceed.

A note: Once Ubuntu-dektop in up and running it maybe pertinent to remove things like Evolution if you don't plan on using that for you e-mail client. Note about installing via gnome-desktop packages… although it works some have had difficulty with it. It is much easier to install the ubuntu desktop packages rather than figuring out a gnome setup, and the plus of installing via “desktop” is that you get most of the packages that make up a minimal version of that particular buntu distro. Note that Ubuntu Studio's RTkernel doesn't seem to work out of the box, so don't temp trying unless you know what your doing.

Known Issues:

*Default Xubuntu theme for GDM causes X.org to crash. -Change your default GDM theme to something other than the default.