update Xandros to Firefox 3

Looking to upgrade to firefox 3 under the original Xandros distribution, after some trial and error I came to find that Asus has actually published updates for Firefox 3 and associated stuff like Flash Player. To do it add this entry to the apt source file

deb http://update.eeepc.asus.com/1.6/ common main

(comment out the original entry). Now the following command will upgrade to Firefox 3 and Flash Player 10 (only partial output shown):

# apt-get update
# apt-get install firefox-upgrade

Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
The following extra packages will be installed:
adobe-flash-player firefox firefox-extension-default firefox-locale-de gtk2-engines libc6 libcairo2 libdatrie0 libglib2.0-0 libgtk2.0-0 libgtk2.0-bin libgtk2.0-common
libpango1.0-0 libpango1.0-common librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common libthai-data libthai0 locales tzdata
Suggested packages:
glibc-doc libc6-i686 ttf-kochi-gothic ttf-kochi-mincho ttf-thryomanes ttf-baekmuk ttf-arphic-gbsn00lp ttf-arphic-bsmi00lp ttf-arphic-gkai00mp ttf-arphic-bkai00mp
librsvg2-bin
Recommended packages:
libglib2.0-data x-ttcidfont-conf
The following NEW packages will be installed:
firefox-upgrade libdatrie0 libthai-data libthai0
The following packages will be upgraded:
adobe-flash-player firefox firefox-extension-default firefox-locale-de gtk2-engines libc6 libcairo2 libglib2.0-0 libgtk2.0-0 libgtk2.0-bin libgtk2.0-common
libpango1.0-0 libpango1.0-common librsvg2-2 librsvg2-common locales tzdata
17 upgraded, 4 newly installed, 0 to remove and 62 not upgraded.
Need to get 32.9MB of archives.
After unpacking 10.8MB of additional disk space will be used.

David and Goliath

Today I decided to try to use my Samsung HDTV as external monitor for my EeePC. Plugged the VGA cable on both end and then needed to start the Gnome Display setting GUI to trigger the detection of an external monitor. Once found it presented me a list of resolutions and I chose the highest one (1024 x 768, 4:3 format) available. Restarted X and done.

Interestingly, when replugged the HDTV a second time, I was offered yet a higher resolution for it, 1360 x 768, 16:9 format. Much better for movies, so I set this one instead and below are the two displays for comparison. Nice.

tuning the EeePC 901

installed eee-control on the EeePC 901 (eeebuntu 2) and all hardware is really nicely integrated now. Also installed cheese and webcam tested ok. So far I am impressed.

Installing EeeUbuntu on EeePC second drive

After adding a 16GB SDHC card, used usb pen drive to install eeeubuntu. Hower the only drive seen is /dev/sda which corresponds to the orignal SDD drive used by Xandros Linux.

To have the second drive appear among the available drives within the eeeubuntu installation program, one need to format the second drive (SDHC card) and set the bootable flag. Only then it will appear and so I could install eeeubuntu on it, leaving the original distribution untouched (for now).

Installing the full desktop (advanced mode) on the EeePC 901

Steps below:

1. "CTRL-ALT-T" to terminal
2. "sudo bash"
3. "apt-get update" to get updates for 900
4. "sudo synaptic" to start Package Manager
5. Click "Settings" , "Repositories"
6. Click "New"
7. URL is "http://update.eeepc.asus.com/p701/"
8. Distribution is "p701"
9. Section(s) is "main"
10. Click "OK" to save
11. Click "Reload" to include p701 in addition to the 900 repositories
12. "File" , "Quit" to exit
13. "apt-get install kicker ksmserver"
14. "exit" to quit terminal
15. now click shutdown and choose reboot to "Full Desktop" from menu

also tried to use the p901 and p900 repos but no luck, p701 seems to be the only way to go.