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I have a new Asus Eee 1000HE. It came with Windows XP, but I want to try out Ubuntu Netbook Remix.

The eee don’t have an optical drive, so we need to install it using an usb drive.

The goal is dual booting Windows XP and Ubuntu. I want Eee to become my main Windows machine; this will allow me to format my Desktop machine to have only have Ubuntu (next release with default ext4 filesystem). I use Windows only to sync my iPod Touch so, this is a great solution.

Download and “Burn” a USB Drive

Go to Ubuntu Netbook Remix Download Page and download Ubuntu.
- Check the downloaded file hash. The output must be the same as you see in the Ubuntu Hashes Page.

md5sum ubuntu-9.04-netbook-remix-i386.img

Create a bootable usb drive from the downloaded image. I tried the Linux version using ImageWriter but it didn’t work. I ended up using the Disk Imager in the pre installed Windows in Eee. Note that this will erase the usb drive contents.

Install from usb

It’s easy. Boot from the usb drive (check the BIOS) and install like any other Ubuntu release.

This is a tested machine so I didn’t play that much with the Live Session.

Hard Drive Partition Layout

I kept Windows installed and I will need a NTFS shared partition to keep all my tunes.

There was a hidden partition, basically used to restore the system. Basically is a pre-installation of Windows. I didn’t kept it.

I don’t have the hard drive all partitioned yet. Will do soon.

/dev/sda
  /dev/sda1    ntfs    WinXP     20 GB    -- primary
  /dev/sda2    ext3   /        9.54 GB    -- primary
  /dev/sda3   swap          1.91 GB    -- primary
  /dev/sda4                            -- extended
  /dev/sda5   ext3     /home      9.54 GB
  /dev/sda6    ntfs    tunes      40 GB
  /dev/sda7   ext3   /storage   9.54 GB

I created the sda7 partition after installing Ubuntu, so I needed to do the following to mount the new partition at boot time:

Find out the UUID (Unique unit ID) of the device

sudo vol_id -u /dev/sda7

Create a folder for your new mount point

sudo mkdir /storage

Open /etc/fstab

sudo gedit /etc/fstab

Add the mount point

UUID=ad02cb4e-f9cf-491a-b661-d96ed2c456be /storage        ext3    relatime        0       2

Reboot
- Add permissions to the new folder

sudo chown -R *youruser*:*youruser* /storage
sudo chmod -R 755 /storage

Post-install: Wireless

The wireless wasn’t working. I could connect, but no Internet connection.

Here’s what I did, after a quick look around:

Download this driver
Rename the actual drivers

cd /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2860/
sudo mv rt2860sta.ko rt2860sta.bak
cd /lib/modules/2.6.28-11-generic/kernel/drivers/staging/rt2870/
sudo mv rt2870sta.ko rt2870sta.bak

Install the package dkms and the new driver

sudo apt-get install dkms
chmod +x rt2860-dkms_1.7.1.1_all.deb
./rt2860-dkms_1.7.1.1_all.deb

I also installed linux-backports-modules-jaunty

sudo apt-get install linux-backports-modules-jaunty

Reboot
I have wireless :-)

Post-Install: Software Sources

Added the following:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/do-core/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb http://packages.medibuntu.org/ jaunty free non-free
deb http://linux.getdropbox.com/ubuntu jaunty main
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/openoffice-pkgs/ubuntu/ jaunty main

Post-install: Extra Software

Dropbox (sudo apt-get install nautilus-dropbox)
Gnome-Do (sudo apt-get install gnome-do)
Eee-Control
Powertop (sudo apt-get install powertop)
GParted (sudo apt-get install gparted)
Firefox Xmarks add-on
Multimedia (including flash)
Adobe Air
TweetDeck
QuickSynergy
Gnucash (sudo apt-get install gnucash)
Aspell pt-pt (sudo apt-get install aspell-pt-pt)
NTFS support to GParted

If you have more tips about using or optimizing the eee please contact me or post a comment :-)

Installing Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix (Asus Eee 1000HE)