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The Linux distillery Restoring and updating the ASUS Eee Linux PC
The Linux distillery Restoring and updating the ASUS Eee Linux PC | Restoring and updating the ASUS Eee Linux PC |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Wednesday, 19 December 2007 | |
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Page 3 of 3 Before being able to use the ASUS Eee you are required to accept the end user license agreement. The license fundamentally says (a) the computer comes with the ASUS Desktop OS which is a collection of software items, (b) some of these are licensed under the GNU GPL and have permissions outlined by that license, (c) there may also exist other software which is not licensed under the GPL or similar permissive licenses. Don’t distribute, copy, reverse-engineer (etc) those programs. The only two pre-installed programs which I found prompted for a subsequent license to be accepted are Skype and the Diagnostic Tool applet.The next, and final, wizard step is the date and time, with the default time zone being America – New York, as previously discovered when my Eee started up and showed the wrong time. This is easily set to the correct time zone and on doing so the wizard is over. The Eee reboots, starting up back into the ever-so friendly six-tabbed interface for which it has become famed. Of course, on this occasion the time zone is now correct – but my previous gripe about the need to manually detect wireless networks still holds. Now you have a completely pristine environment, it’s time to get it up-to-date with any new software releases since the factory image was built. Click the Settings tab, then Add/Remove Software. This applet will use your Internet connection to probe ASUS’ web site for new downloads. For those keen to know what’s going on under the hood, Task Manager identifies that the underlying command being run is /opt/xandros/bin/XNLite. At the time of writing, there are a couple of updates to existing software as well as two new programs. Skype, Dictionary, Voice Control and Internet Radio all have new versions, although only Internet Radio’s version number is indicated (v3.45-1asus1). The new apps both load onto the Settings tab. The first is GSynaptics, labelled “Touchpad”, which lets you make changes to the touchpad’s behaviour and settings on the fly. The second is ASUS’ wireless range maximiser, labelled “EEEAP.” In an oddly Windows-like fashion, each update insisted a reboot was required although I found there was no problem delaying the reboot until all updates had been installed. Additionally, the Add/Remove Software applet indicates if there is a BIOS update to the Eee hardware itself. There’s one new update – version 0401 dated 5-Oct-2007. You can check your current BIOS version both by watching carefully when the system first starts up or by calling up a command prompt by pressing CTRL+ALT+T at the same time and then executing the command sudo /usr/sbin/biosupdate.pl --current. On my Eee the BIOS was 0204. Unfortunately the description displayed in Add/Remove Software is extremely brief and didn’t give any real clues to what had been added or repaired in the update. Under the hood, the BIOS update runs the PERL script /usr/sbin/biosupdate.pl --install http://update.eeepc.asus.com/bios/701-ASUS-0401.zip; this in turn calls /usr/bin/wget --quiet http://update.eeepc.asus.com/bios/701-ASUS-0401.zip to actually download the zip file. After biosupdate.pl completes, let the Eee reboot. It will shut down and fire back up, launching the BIOS update tool automatically. This does not take any lengthy time to complete, before rebooting again – this time the BIOS displaying “0401” as its version. Join me next Monday as I go deeper under the hood of the ASUS Eee Linux PC. For Linux lovers, note the CTRL+ALT+T terminal window; it gives a great feeling to get dirty with a bash shell and makes the Eee really feel like home again. The command prompt is the key to doing much, much more with the Eee than the default tabbed interface permits and you’ll harness the raw power underneath.
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