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The Linux distillery A cacophony of ASUS Eee Linux PC tips and tricks
The Linux distillery A cacophony of ASUS Eee Linux PC tips and tricks | A cacophony of ASUS Eee Linux PC tips and tricks |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Friday, 28 December 2007 | |
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However, it was also a mongrel of a machine. Periodically I'd start it up to be greeted by a boot-killing disk fault. Restarting didn't help; the only option seemed to be making a bootable USB stick with the original factory image and then restoring. Unfortunately, I'd only get a few uses before the exact same thing happened again, requiring yet another restore. Actually, this is my first tip for today – after my experience, I bought a cheap 1Gb USB flash drive and put a copy of the boot image on it. Hopefully I won't need it again, but I know that in the event of disaster – whether a genuine fault or just too much tinkering on my part – I always have a means of getting back to the original state, right at hand. You can read how to do this here. Given the interest people have in loading other versions of Linux – or even, surprise, Windows XP – I think it's definitely worthwhile doing likewise. Knowing you can restore the Eee at will to a good state gives great peace of mind. Back to the story – I took my Eee back to Myer who kindly swapped it then and there for a brand new replacement. I was happy with this, my original Eee had already been used before I turned it on for the first time (because the first-use wizard had been run by someone else) and for all I know it had been dropped and the internal solid-state drive harmed. My original Eee also had a single bright pixel stuck on. While not a huge problem it was disappointing. I checked ASUS' web site for their dead/bright pixel policy and it turns out they do not offer a zero pixel fault warranty on the Eee; instead I needed several pixel problems before a replacement could be issued. Happily, the new Eee from Myer has no pixel issues so I'm better off. My new Eee is black – and I think I prefer the white a bit more, but black is still cool – but it also is a different series. Firstly, it has firmware 0401 already loaded and secondly the serial number begins with 7B which, according to some hardware hackers, means it is missing an internal expansion slot that the first model had. To be honest, though, I'm too chicken to remove the sticker underneath which voids my warranty if removed. Nevertheless, I'm back in action. I'm also curious to know if my problem has been experienced anywhere else. Was it mishandling by Myer or a bad batch of drives? Anyone else got a similar story? But for now – onto the tips; let's make the Eee sing. (If you've ever had the misfortune to hear my singing, it's an unpleasant cacophony - but by contrast, your Eee will be purring sweetly with the tune up we're about to give.) CONTINUED |
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