I installed Ubuntu 7.10 which it had no trouble running including full compiz effects. Like most people my biggest gripe was with the screen resolution (I have small hands so the keyboard was less of a problem).

I eventually gave it to a traveling monk who needed something minimal and am now waiting for the 900 model with the Atom processor to come out to get it again. I’m deliberately waiting for the new processor (expected in June) since this should significantly increase the battery run time.

I too await the 900 series with the 9-inch screen. But I will not be running XP on it. I wish Microsoft well and look forward to giving Windows 7.0 a try — if/when it arrives. But I’m done buying/installing XP and Vista on my machines. It just doesn’t seem worth the hassle.

In my travels I saw them for sale in several shops in France and also in the UK (but they were always sold out…and the store would order one for you!)

Anyway, I just carried around a few USB drives for spare storage…mostly podcasts that I could listen to on train and plane trips. There was also enough drive space so that I could on a daily basis dump the photos from my digital camera on the flash drive for backup till I got home.

I used both wired and wireless connections…no problem. Made use of Skype to “call home” on a number of occasions with it.

In one internet cafe I used in Nice, France I found that the Windows boxes a) had AZERTY keyboards that I found hard to get used to and b)had viruses on them! So the owner let me plug in my EeePC. I was happy!

After a while, you do get used to the somewhat small keyboard.

In recent weeks (back at home) I was setting up someone’s home wifi connection…and had to use an access point instead of a router (first time doing that). But what was nice is that I could use my EeePC to test the connections out…it was very easy to get to a command line (Ctrl, Alt, F12) to do my “ping” tests…didn’t have to use the guy’s Windows box where I was constantly having to reboot every time I made a configuration change.

I also used it recently with a projector for the first time. You can adjust the screen resolution to 1024×768 for use with a projector or external monitor.

I’ve found battery life to be a couple of hours…not great but okay. If you turn the wifi off you can squeeze a bit more out of the batteries.

And yes there is a modified version of “Xubuntu” that’s available for the EeePC (I think a version of Mandriva too)…and quite a lively forum has developed around this little gem.

The newer “900 series” EeePC’S should start hitting the store shelves by the end of May. They have a GB of RAM, a somewhat larger 8.9 inch screen, can do 1024×600 screen resolution instead of 800×480 (so less side-scrolling on websites).

The 900 series has both a Windows XP Home and a Linux variant…and both will sell for about the same price. However I understand the XP Home version will only have a 12 GB flash drive while the Linux version will have a 20 GB flash drive. So if the “Microsoft tax” is included in the price, you sacrifice with a smaller flash drive.

If I recall correctly the 900 series will have the same 900 MHz. Celeron processor…so it would run pretty slowly under WinXP anyway.

I’ll probably buy a 900 series EeePC when they hit the streets and then use my older 700 series machine to play with “eee-Xubuntu”.

The EeePC is a sweet machine…when you’re mobile you don’t have to carry everything including the kitchen sink around with you. Quite a number of my friends have raced out an bought one after seeing mine.

Great hardware for tinkering and learning.