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One of the first things I did with my new ASUS EeePC 901Go was to install my familiar Debian GNU/Linux environment on the little box. (Ok, the very first thing was to upgrade the RAM by changing the 1GB PC5300 SODIMM to a 2GB model ).

The installation of Debian (“Lenny”) GNU/Linux was pretty straight forward. There is an EeePC subproject on debian.org, see http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC.

Here’s the summary:

• Download http://eeepc.debian.net/debian/images/debian-eeepc.img
• Insert an USB stick (all data will be erased!) and enter these commands in a terminal:

  dd if=debian-eeepc.img of=/dev/<YOUR-USB-DEVICE>

  sync

• Put the USB stick into the EeePC and power it up
• Press F2 to enter the BIOS
  • Make sure that all hardware components (e.g. WLAN/webcam) are activated, so that the Debian installer installs the appropriate packages
  • Verify the boot order, so that the EeePC will start from the stick
  • Save and exit the Bios
• Connect the EeePC to your LAN if you like to do the installation via wired network
• Reboot the EeePC from the stick and follow the Debian installer instructions

Possible caveats:

• If you abort the installation process in the middle of the installation, your system is (of course) unbootable.
  • If you try to restart your system, you will probably not see the BIOS screen (and hence not be able to restart the installation from the USB stick), but only a black screen with a single line: “Error 2″
  • Don’t panic! (Well, to be honest, I did )
  • Take a small paper clip and put it in the “reset hole” in the bottom of the EeePC (while the EeePC is running), that should reboot the EeePC completly and allow you to restart the installation (it took me some time to find this out)
• If you wake the EeePC up from standby mode, the WLAN may not work, if you press Fn-F2 twice, it will work again, but there is a nicer solution:
  • Create a file /etc/pm/config.d/eeepc with the following line:

    SUSPEND_MODULES="$SUSPEND_MODULES ath_pci"

  • After that change, WLAN is reactivated correctly after waking up from standby mode

Look at the Debian EeePC troubleshooting wiki page for recent problems.

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For the mobile internet access in Germany, I can recommend these two UMTS providers:

	BASE offers an UMTS flatrate for 17.50€
	Simyo offers a prepaid UMTS solution, 24ct/MB or 10€ for 1GB

I'm using an UMTS card of these providers in the my Asus EeePC 901Go and it works great. Pretty fast and reliable. If you want to order a new UMTS card anyway, please support me by using one of these links. For every order, I get some refund to pay my server bill. Thanks.

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If you like my work, buy me a beer. (Suggested: 3€ for a beer, or more for more beer ;-) )

Tags: EeePC, Gadget, Linux

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 12:56 and is filed under EeePC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.