Hi all, I was scanning the thread and thought I would pass on my experience with my new eeepc 900. I have the 20g version with the stock linux. Out of the box, this machine is amazing. I'm headed towards Alaska next week and I needed a rugged pc that would run my old City Select maps (much smalller maps then the NS version). I use the latest wine from winehq.org rather then pay the Microsoft ransom. My install was particularly challenging as Garmin requires you install from your very first CD (which is four years old now). I copied the disks on to a set of SD cards and launched the setup from wine. In my case, I had five disks to deal with. Three original and two upgrade disks. The base map source image loaded fine from the SD card. The city select disks needed to be combined onto a single SD card as did the two city select upgrade disks. Starting up mapsource with wine went well and I entered my product codes enableing the maps. I set up a module called garmin-gps (built into the stock kernel) and mapped com2 to the dev that garmin-gps module creates. Hooked up the GPS and magic! the gps60cs was seen by mapsource running under wine-linux. One last note... when uploading maps from mapsource to the gps, mapsource will say it uploaded and completed, however, there is a bunch of buffering going on behind the scenes and the gps takes some time to catch up and finish but it does finish
btw, this diatribe was written using my eeepc
See ya'll on the back roads!

AG

I'm using my Eee-PC in anger for the first time on the road. Unfortunately after just a few days of travel the battery has gone dead and will not charge. It works fine on the mains lead but will not boot up at all just on the battery. It was in bubble wrap inside a Peli1200 case so should have been well protected. It's under warranty so I'll have to take it back when I get home. Otherwise it's been great.

So if I read that correctly, you had no issues with Wine/linux and mapsource? Very cool. I haven't used wine for years on my own and just use one that was hacked up to run MS-Office at work.

Thats great to hear. I have to give it a shot. Mapsource is the _only_ program that uses MSwin. Especially now that there is a picassa for Linux!!

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All the way south - Texas to Tierra del Fuego in '08-'09

Yes, I'm currently running my gps60cs loaded with maps, waypoints, routes and tracks from my eeepc/linux/wine. I will be working on a stepbystep for the process and will load that on my web site Welcome to Out--There.

AG

i just ordered a xp version for use with mapsource. i am in Alaska at the moment, Fairbanks, heading to TOK tomorrow.

next thing to do is find an 12V adapter to connect to my bike to load the battery.

need campingtips?

cheers,
Sander

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http://sanderonasingle.blogspot.com/

Hello there - I run Elonexparts and ECW. Here's what happened - - the Wetrin family's Elonex plc went into administration in May 2006. A print cartridge company AFIC bought the maintenance dept including the parts, called it something like Elonex Ltd and gave up in October 2006. Then a company who buys companies in administration bought the whole lot (Elonex plc and Elonex Ltd).

It is this company in Bromsgrove who have decided to run with the Elonex brand and are making (or rebranding) more consumer products like hifis and TVs than concentrating on the computer industry. I bought much of the parts they did not want from them in Nov 2006 and have a few very experienced ex-employees of the original company. We are able to repair all items including the more difficult Exentia and Lumina media centres.

So the new "Elonex" are bringing out the Elonex One (I'll show you the original item non-branded if you ask!) and it may do very well.....
They are calling us Authorised Elonex Repair Centre and pass all "previous customer" technical enquiries onto us now. If anyone out there needs help please get in touch - info@elonexparts.com or 020 8202 9065. Elonexparts deals with the Elonex customers and Ever-changing World is a mainstream computer hardware and software supplier (and will price match on the EEE pcs and hunt down stock when it's short!)

Hope that helps!

Anthony Brody

Cheers Anthony, very helpful info
TDMalcolm

The EEPC sounds great. I'm not into using linux, can you get it with windows?
Joe

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"I reject your reality and substitute my own!" -Adam John Savage- MythBusters

Just to bump up my question again. Could I buy this cheaper in India than the USA? Should I get linux (some familiarity with) or Win to run with my Garmin GPS? I'm also pretty sure I'll sell my GPS and just run with paper maps. I love maps but GPS isn't so great. I don't mind being lost.

--Dave

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Not Ted Simon since 1970!
http://nokilli.com/rtw

Hi Guys,

Ok, I have just bought the XP version 12 Gig HD. I love this little unit though you have to punch the keys quite hard. Anyway I got this unit in Australia from JB Hi Fi – Smashing Prices for $548.00 AUD. I think that this was a bargain actually as I have seen them in the US for $599US and Singapore for $798SGD.

Just a little info for you all.

Cheers

Hi, for all those people that have taken their Eees out on a travel with them, how are they holding up? Are they sticking together pretty well or are keys falling off and batteries dying?

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The Wonderful Wander To Oz

Can I just add that the EEPC is NOT crash proof.

I threw a new one against the wall, and the screen shattered into a million bits.

However - I was quite impressed that despite not being able to see anything (except some really freaky fractal shapes) - it still turned on, and booted up.

Prior to being used as a projectile, it survived a 5,000km trip in the desert on very, very bumpy and dusty roads.



PS: Incidentally, if you need EEPC spares, or a brand new box with all the bits in, (except a screen) - get in touch.

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Errr why? If you didn't want it you could have sent it to me you know. In fact you still could if you want.

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I've had the Eee PC (701) now for a few months and have been using it as my primary machine whilst away and my secondary machine at home.

I must admit I've had a few issues with it - for a start I've had to return it to factory defaults (keep hitting F9 at start up) about 5 times - all down to the fact that I got irritated by the basic set up and tried to install new and wonderful applications and advanced user interfaces. Fortunately all my files and documents are kept on the 8gb SD card slapped in the side, so I didn't lose anything - but the re-install and then update of the system takes an hour or two - it can quite happily be done on the road - but if you want the updates you need a pretty hefty Internet Connection - I did manage to do it in Starbucks whilst away but it cost me about 20 GBP in coffee to sit there for two hours!

This has actually given me confidence in the kit, unlike most other laptop software setups, if it dies, you can just hammer F9 until it takes it back to the simple set up it came with out of the box - and to be frank - that's enough to email, blog, skype, sort out my photos etc.

However, there is no way this machine can be used as your primary set up, I've had no luck sourcing a decent / simple video editor that has worked consistently, at least, no editor that can pull the DV files off my camcorder as they're downloaded and then allow me to edit them. You can combine about three bits of software to do this, but none of them are very good and you will end up getting very frustrated. The simple solution to this is to instal Ubuntu and run a better application - combine this with buying a new SD based camcorder and you'd be laughing - of course - you'd need a little bigger internal memory too - the 4gb is quite limiting - even if you are just using it for the system and no actualy file storage.

I've now had a good play with the new 900 units with a 20gb internal drive - much easier to instal new apps and OS - the screen is much better, and it's just more flexable all round - however - at over 350gbp it's into the terrotary of other probably better ultra light laptops - and frankly - whilst I can almost aford to lose 200gbp if the asus doesn't stand up to the journey - 350gbp is somehow, more difficult.

If you accept it's limitations in order to have a fantasticly small, light, bomb proof machine; it's worth it's weight in gold. If you desperately need video editing, or advanced photo editing, it's probably not for you, and perhaps you should have a look at the myriad of new ultra portables (for a little more cash) coming out of everyone from Apple to Dell.

There's a good round up of the products available over at CNET

Ultra-portable laptops - Laptop Round-ups at CNET.co.uk

it's a little out of date now and there are many more on the market - but it's a good place to start.

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I posted earlier about the dead battery on my Eee. I took it back to PC World today and it was in fact a dead battery and nothing more serious. To their credit they just got me a new one from the store room and I was out of there.

Has anyone else had any failures connected to the eee-PC?