[LAU] Asus EEE 1000 as new softsynth?

[Ivica Ico Bukvic]

> I've purchased a new Asus EEE 1000 PC, and I love this thing.
> 
> First off, almost everything on it just works with Linux, out of the box!
> I've never had a laptop on which everything actually worked properly.
> Audio, wireless, suspend-to-disk, even the webcam works with Debian EEE
> distro, out of the box! I was stunned. I've never experienced anything
> like this with linux.

I must say I indeed share every bit of your excitement in respect to Linux +
netbooks. I too recently got a MSI Wind (was barely over $400) and after
wiping the drive and installing Linux I can only say this thing is truly
amazing. In my 10+ years of using Linux I've never had this kind of
experience: everything worked except wireless for which I simply compiled a
driver that did not make it into Ubuntu 8.10 (for those who venture in this
direction, make sure to check what kind of wireless card you have--don't
trust online how-tos as my netbook needed an entirely different driver;
apparently MSI has a habit of changing these things). Suspend works,
hibernate works, wireless works (after a quick compile), webcam works, Skype
works, little dual screen setup works without having to restart X (great for
presentations), and the funniest thing ever is that the manufacturer's
latest BIOS allows overclocking with a Fn+F10 (dedicated key with a nice
blue icon, too!) for up to 24% extra power (AC only). As if that weren't
geeky enough, when overclocking the power button changes from blue to
orange. The thing comes with a 6-cell battery (~4.5 hours of battery life)
and a 1.6GHz Atom that packs quite a punch for a system that typically uses
less than 15Watts.

Unlike EEE, though, this one does have a traditional HD, but it is a beast
(160GB). Now, the coolest thing is that I have full effects running on
Compiz, installed JACK, added 3 lines to limits.conf and presto, got rock
solid RT performance at 512x2 using crappy built-in soundcard. Compiled
Ardour 2.7 and haven't had a single xrun on a vanilla 8.10 kernel. All in
all, I am a very, very happy owner of this netbook.

If there is room for complaining then that would be:

1) 1024x600 resolution at times is cumbersome as some dialogs/apps by
default have windows that don't allow resizing below ~650 pixels height-wise
(cough, cough, ardour mixer? :-) making it a bit annoying to deal with as
taskbars end-up covering the ok/cancel buttons
2) my model does not have synaptics touchpad (some claim to have it on this
model, again suggesting that MSI mixes/matches parts) so no nifty scrolling
features for me
3) the lack of a FW port for my FA-101. Seems like I might have to invest in
an USB audio card...

ico