Arch on Eee PC - how do you feel about it?

nirvanix · 2008-12-21 20:41:21

I'm wondering about the current state of satisfaction with users running Arch on their Eee PC? I've got one, but still have the Xandros linux on it. Does everything work when running Arch? The wireless, the webcam, mic, etc? Is it fairly straight forward now to install it?

thanks.

Zariel · 2008-12-21 21:11:09

http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=39375
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Ins … sus_EEE_PC

Wittfella · 2008-12-22 02:19:15

Hello,

I just got a 900AH yesterday and I am pretty impressed. I was reading the wiki entries with all the info about custom kernels and whatnot to get everything working and it sounded like a bit of a pain, but to my surprise nearly everything works 'out of the box' with the latest stock kernel.

I installed with the latest 'img' from the download area. Installs fine but once up I had no wired or wireless. This was with kernel 2.6.25. I then grabbed a copy of the latest [core] stock kernel 2.6.27.8 (i think), put it on a usb thumb, put it in the ee and 'pacman -U'.

When I rebooted, both wired and wireless work perfectly. No messing around with other drivers.

Even xorg works perfectly, touchpad with tapping and multitouch scroll is fine, does not even need an xorg.conf file.

Hope this helps,
Wittfella

kjon · 2008-12-22 02:32:43

one word: Impressive.
I own a 900 eee. I've installed plain arch on it and after a few tweaks (because I don't want to kill the fun installing a super-optimized kernel), it runs wonderfully.

nirvanix · 2008-12-22 11:07:39

thanks kjon and Witfella for your enlightening posts!

Arkane · 2008-12-22 12:48:09

The SSD's awful write speeds make package upgrades pretty painful, though.

nirvanix · 2008-12-22 16:38:08

Do you find it quick enough in general to use? I suspect the boot time will be slower than the default Xandros?

Also, I haven;t heard from anyone with the 701 version which is what I've got. It has the older Intel cpu and only 4gb SSD. I wonder how Arch will run on it?

Last edited by nirvanix (2008-12-22 16:40:26)

testube_babies · 2008-12-22 17:38:01

I've had Arch on my 701 since the day I got it. Runs great. There has been a lot of work put in to making Arch run well on the 701.

All of the hardware works once you have toofishes' kernel-eee installed.

For me, the custom eee kernel boots to GDM in about 20-25 seconds (the stock kernel26 boots in about 45-55s).

nirvanix · 2008-12-22 20:08:38

I tried installing Arch on my Eee from a 4gb thumbdrive, but it won't boot from the thumbdrive. I did the 'esc' key so that the boot menu came up, and I choose the thumbdrive, but just bypassed it and booted Xandros. Any ideas?

I prepared the thumbdrive with dd if=image.img of=/dev/sd[x]

PS: what desktops are you all running? Kde, XFCE?

Last edited by nirvanix (2008-12-22 21:47:47)

dsr · 2008-12-22 22:18:03

nirvanix, you should definitely consider using a tiling wm (especially a full screen one like ratpoison or stumpwm) since the Eee has very little screen real estate. Might as well maximize the room you do have. Besides, tiling wm's are less resource-intensive.

testube_babies · 2008-12-22 22:47:57

I've used KDE3, KDE4, Openbox, Awesome3, Gnome, and standalone Compiz Fusion on my Eee. It can run them all competently. Window management was certainly easiest in awesome (tiling), but the small screen isn't nearly as hindering as you might think. I'm currently using Gnome+Compiz.

I don't know what to say about your boot problems. Try again?

nirvanix · 2008-12-22 22:54:23

Thanks, seems like the torrent was corrupted, it's working now.

nirvanix · 2008-12-23 14:23:26

I've got it working pretty well. Decided to use LXDE for a window manager, Tried kde4 but found it was a bit slow.

windtalker · 2008-12-23 16:45:23

I just put Arch with kdemod3.5 on an old:
Compaq Armada E500
p3 processor
256 ram
20 gig hd
Rage Mobility ATI

Does fine for me and the speed of everything is adequate.
Only real thing anyone may consider a problem is the video card.
Neither of the drivers could be found during configuring so I have to use the vesa driver.
No real problem there for me as I don't intend to do any gaming or anything else 3D with the box.

kjon · 2008-12-23 17:04:42

I owned a 701, 2gb, a few months ago. I managed to install stock arch on it. After a few tweaks installing wireless (it can be done painlessly using ndiswrapper, or the fun way, compiling madwifi), I managed to squashfs root in order to install a whole xfce desktop on 1.2 gb. (this includes ooo, ffox, tbird, deluge and so on.).

It needs a little bit of love, but that is the fun part.

nirvanix · 2008-12-23 21:00:59

I'm pretty happy with LXDE and Arch on my Eee PC! With the custom kernel from toofishes it boots quickly and LXDE doesn't use much memory. Only problem is can't get webcam working - followed instructions, but no soup for me. When I run lvcview I get:

luvcview version 0.2.1
Video driver: x11
A window manager is available
video /dev/video0
ERROR opening V4L interface
: No such file or directory

Any idea?

nirvanix · 2008-12-23 22:28:10

OK, got it all working - had to enable cam in bios. Working now in Skype and mplayer, but not in the luvcview.

Very happy with Arch and LXDE on my Eee PC!!! I don't have to deal with dpkg or old versions of software anymore!!!

AnimalMachine · 2008-12-23 23:31:31

I finally put arch onto my ssd of my 700 series 2G surf model. Once you install the custom kernel everything works just fine.

I managed to finally figure out how to connect to my wireless router with wep through command line tools. I also use wmii with X to keep resource (both cpu and ssd space) usage to a minimum. As it is, I only have about 700mb left once I got my lisp, scheme, and other compilers/platforms set to go. I also gotta find a replacement for firefox (130mb or so with dependencies on ssd); currently I'm using links and screen.

nirvanix · 2008-12-24 00:02:03

I got 1.7 gb left over on the SSD.

Zariel · 2008-12-24 00:15:18

Can you replace the ssd in the 901 models?

nirvanix · 2008-12-24 12:28:32

Yes, you can! Patriot sells a 32gb model upgrade SSD for about $100

http://www.ncix.com/products/index.php? … re=Patriot

Last edited by nirvanix (2008-12-24 15:47:14)

der_joachim · 2008-12-24 17:32:32

I installed Arch on my EEE900 about eleven days ago. I run Netbook Remix on top of Gnome, which I found in AUR. It made me quite happy, since that was what kept me using Ubuntu.

Arch is awesome. I love its speed and simplicity. One thing though. Everything worked out of the box! Where's the fun is that?

My system is quite snappy and boots in less than 20 seconds. The few problems I had were quickly solved by browsing the Wiki (see the EEE link in the second post) and these fine forums. Thanks!

nirvanix · 2008-12-24 18:42:26

Can you tell me more about netbook remix? Can you run it on top of Arch - you don't need Ubuntu? What video driver are you using?

I find the 2-D screen repaint a bit slow right now - that's my only complaint. Maybe I should use the other video driver? I used the xf86-video-intel.

testube_babies · 2008-12-24 20:27:10

nirvanix wrote:

I find the 2-D screen repaint a bit slow right now - that's my only complaint. Maybe I should use the other video driver? I used the xf86-video-intel.

Sometimes this is an issue with CPU frequency scaling. If you're running toofishes kernel, then CPU scaling is preset to use the ondemand governor, which tends to make X less responsive (but saves battery life).

To set the governor to performance (more responsive, more power consumption), make sure cpufrequtils is installed and use the command "cpufreq-set -g performance" as root. (Note that the kernel will load the ondemand governor every time you reboot.)

I think the wiki article also mentions how to tweak ondemand to be more responsive.

Last edited by testube_babies (2008-12-24 20:29:09)

nirvanix · 2008-12-24 22:35:23

Thanks testube, I wondered if it was that. I am interested in preserving the battery too I guess.

Update: I did change it to 40%. It's much better.

Last edited by nirvanix (2008-12-25 03:22:42)

Arch Linux

#1 2008-12-21 20:41:21

Arch on Eee PC - how do you feel about it?

#2 2008-12-21 21:11:09

Re: Arch on Eee PC - how do you feel about it?

#3 2008-12-22 02:19:15

Re: Arch on Eee PC - how do you feel about it?

#4 2008-12-22 02:32:43

Re: Arch on Eee PC - how do you feel about it?

#5 2008-12-22 11:07:39

Re: Arch on Eee PC - how do you feel about it?

#6 2008-12-22 12:48:09

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#7 2008-12-22 16:38:08

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#8 2008-12-22 17:38:01

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#10 2008-12-22 22:18:03

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#11 2008-12-22 22:47:57

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