Breeezy for the 700 series = ~70meg. Excellent out of the box working solution. Has Firefox + Flash 9, I think.

Tinycore for any eee = 11 meg. Needs a bit of work to get going (i.e. you need the wireless extensions downloaded before you can connect to the wireless). This is a very new and fast growing distro. Also exists as microcore without gui at 8 meg. Has lots of browsers (opera, minefield, firefox, etc) and flash 10.

Slitaz runs from RAM I think (~30 meg), but has an old kernel so won't work with eee wireless without work.

All the above use JWM as the windows manager, just like puppy (Breeezy is a puppy variant).

Personally, I have tried all the above, and while I have a lot of love for Breeezy, it is increasingly dated and I think tinycore is the future.

Definitely check out SliTaz. Kerpob's info is out of date. SliTaz currently uses LXDE (not jwm), the 2.6.29 kernel, and comes in an eee-specific "flavor": http://forum.slitaz.org/viewtopic.php?id=1686

The only catch is it's "free software only" so you have to install Flash with the simple terminal command: get-flash-plugin

xxiamdrewxx wrote:

Curious what is the best distro that loads into ram. Specifically for the eee so I do not have to configure it. I have a eee 900 16g and have had some issues with finding a good distro.Just looking for something solely for the speed all it needs is a web browser with flash thanks.

Dunno about best.

I have used a few of the heavier linux variants, but have spent the most time with the lightweight puppy flavors:

pupeee 4.2:  based on 4.2 puppy.  Wireless, etc, worked OOB.
puppy 4.2.1:  plain puppy linux install.  Had to install the madwifi-hal .pet to get 900's wifi running. I keep a copy of the .pet on my sd card in case I need it.

Both use seamonkey and flash works very well (better than any of my desktops with  Firefox/flash).  Both are seriously fast.

Using a "runs in RAM" flavor is probably a good idea with the slow-SSD 900 16GB.

snowpine wrote:

Definitely check out SliTaz. Kerpob's info is out of date. SliTaz currently uses LXDE (not jwm), the 2.6.29 kernel, and comes in an eee-specific "flavor": http://forum.slitaz.org/viewtopic.php?id=1686

The only catch is it's "free software only" so you have to install Flash with the simple terminal command: get-flash-plugin

For me, the only catch is that it won't boot, hanging on "configuring wifi0" unless it's turned off in BIOS.  Will give it a few more months and try again.

fratermus wrote:

Trying Tinycore RC now.  Man, I love the idea.  Get a minimal distro then add what you like.

My first hour with it;  fighting with:
* wireless

I've spent ages trying to get Tinycore to see my wireless.  Followed loads of advice in loads of forums but still haven't achieved anything.  Even when I use wired internet, tinycore's AppBrowser rarely worked right.

I do like the concept though.  I now download the files and deps I need via FTP, throw them in my persistent repository, and there they are on boot up.  Love it.

And it even runs my fave Office App - Softmaker - although I can't figure out how to add shortcuts to the menus yet.

The concept is a sound one.  11MB for the OS, and then you can see exactly what files are used for apps.  No "hidden" bloat.

Going to have a peek at SliTaz later.

fratermus wrote:

* can't seem to get my personal/local file to get scanned at boot.  The file is created on usb but doesn't seem to be used by the system afterwards.

I don't use home= or local= but I've added "restore=sdc1/tcl" (which is where my mydata.tgz gets stored when I shut down) to syslinux.cfg.

I've also noticed that it takes the USB drive a bit of time before it gets "recognised" by tinycore on boot so I've added "waitusb=5" and that did the trick.

Hope some of this helps.

fratermus wrote:

I fought for a couple more hours and (kinda) won.

Got persistence by creating the tclocal on sda1; dunno why that worked and the others did not.
Got wireless by installing the wireless*.tce files and then waving the ifconfig and iwconfig chickens.  I think that TCL RC 2.2 rc1 has madwifi built in.  Good thing, because I couldn't get madwifi-hal to compile. 

Boy, do I ever hate that moving/resizing menu ribbon at the bottom.  Fancy, yes, but if you try to click an icon and it resizes (and shifts) so that your cursor is no longer over the icon, what good is that?

I think TCL's minimalist approach is genius.  I have just recently gotten Puppy set up the way I like it so I'll probably stick with it.  But of all the OSes I've tried so far, I think TCL appeals the most to my purist instinct. 

TCL is genius, no doubt about it.  But she's running me ragged and I need a rest.

LOL - reminds me of my first experiences with TCL! Documentation for it is pretty poor, but their forum is helpful & active.

I too get wireless working by installing the wireless 2.6.29 and wireless tools extensions from a locally downloaded copy.

Then it's (for me):

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid any

Then I used the networking thing in the apps panel to get it working, but I suppose you could do "udhcpc wlan0" in terminal.

You won't need madwifi as I think that 2.6.29 kernel has all the eee wireless drivers already in it - it certainly has the atheros one that the 701 uses.

The fancy ribbon thing is called wbar and you can configure it so that the icons don't zoom. Personally, I love it!

I downloaded the TCL 2.2rc1 iso last night & within an hour had it up and running and persistent with Shiretoko (a version of firefox 3.5 more suited to RAM running), flash 10 and SciTE (my fave editor right now). What I do is use my main distro (Arch) to mount the iso with "sudo mount -o loop tinycore.iso /mnt/iso" (your mountpoint may be different). Then go to the /mnt/iso/boot directory and copy the 2 files to my /boot/ folder. I then edit my existing Arch grub to include TCL - this is all in the TCL FAQ, and also on my earlier posts about tinycore here. Then get the wireless working and download the apps I like.

Distro with much MUCH promise.

wbar's config file is in /usr/share/wbar I think - if you create a copy in home then that will take precedence. Very obvious text file to edit.

JSRinUK wrote:

I'll be so pleased of TCL 2.2 makes wireless easier because I still haven't worked it out on my 901.
Got to agree with that.  If I can ever figure out wireless and printing, I know I'm going to enjoy TCL.

The problem was I was trying to use ath0 as the wifi device, but here's what made it go on the 900:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid any
#get a dhcp lease
sudo udhcpc -H box -b -i wlan0

This hooked me up to an open AP. Haven't played with encryption.  It appears that the card is being driven by ath5k, if I am reading lsmod correctly.  Got the idea to use wlan because there was a wlan0.sh in /opt;  that directory had been mentioned on a wiki somewhere.

Last edited by fratermus (2009-07-15 10:23:00 am)

Oh yes, for TCL on the 701 you need to get 915resolution tce and then edit /opt/bootlocal.sh to contain the line

sudo 915resolution 5c 800 480

Not sure about the 900 series - might not need to do anything, but on the 701 the screen resolution is set lower than optimum.

You can put the wireless startup commands in bootlocal.sh as well so wireless starts up automatically.

Yes, I have 915resolution for my 901 as well.  I don't recall having to sudo anything, I'm fairly sure I just dropped it into my persistent repository and installed it.  It was about the easiest thing I've done on TCL so far.  Getting the resolution right is a fairly minor thing, but it makes all the difference.

Now, off to boot into TCL to try out some of the tips listed here.  Bet I won't get wireless working, though...

kerpob wrote:

TCL 2.1 is on the cover of Linux Format as one of their 2 featured distros - the other is Fedora 11.

Update - I get wireless working with:

sudo ifconfig wlan0 up
sudo iwconfig wlan0 essid any
udhcpc -i -b wlan0

I think I must just especially clueless when it comes to Linux in general and TCL in particular.

First of all I couldn't find the relevant wbar file to add icons to the bar (although I did figure out how to add things to the right-click menu but it's taking a lot of trial and error to make them stick). 

Secondly, when I attempted the wireless I got an inexplicable error after the first (ifconfig) line.

I think I'll just have to wait until I have a day spare to work it out (I said that about printing in Puppy and I still haven't found the time to do it).  Thanks for your help, though.

kerpob wrote:

That error wasn't the SCOSIOFLGS one was it? This means that you haven't installed the wireless extensions, or maybe need the firmware extension.

It may have been.  I thought I had all the wireless extensions (and anything that looked remotely "wireless-y" ) in my tce/tcz from the last time I tried it but perhaps I am missing something so I'll take a closer look.

kerpob wrote:

Actually, I couldn't find the wbar config file on TCL when I looked the other day either! I can find it on other distros, will need to ask on the TCL forum!!! EDIT: did a search, it is: /usr/local/tce.wbar

Is it just enough to copy that to home and then edit the copy?

Despite the difficulties, I'm still sure that TCL is the way to go.  Starting with no bloat and just installing what you need has to be the future.