When I first got my EEE901, the first thing I did was to get rid of Xandros, the Toys-R-Us like OS and install a proper distro. After a bit of googling, I came across eeebuntu. At that point, it was a working distro, but there was still a lot of work to be done to make it suitable for everyone. A lot of it was down to limitations in Hardy itself, but there were some bits of eeebuntu that weren't quite right either. My biggest gripe was that it installed compiz or the netbook launcher when you installed.

So imagine my joy when I finally decided to update to eeebuntu Ibex and found a "base" distribution. Whereas Hardy took up almost 3 gig before I removed things I didn't need, base took up only 1.5gb and included Firefox, nothing else.

Wireless worked straight after install (first release ever to do that for me) - which I suppose should be expected as they only have one target system. This meant that I could start working on getting set up straight away. Most of the preferences options have been moved to something called the Control Centre, which is a bit like the Windows Control Panel.

I spotted a bluetooth icon on there and decided to give it a go. Getting my Nokia N95 working via bluetooth was like pulling teeth last time, so seeing how easily it connected this time was great. I did however have to pair using the phone first, as I didn't know the default PIN for the the laptop.

My main reason for getting bluetooth working was to use mobile broadband. I had it working on Hardy, but it took a lot of command line work. Unfortunately, after some searching around I discovered that it took just as much work on Ibex. However, if I plug the phone in via USB, it was as simple as clicking on T-Mobile and it connected. Carrying a USB cable won't be too much trouble.

After going through my VHost Setup reference post, the EEE was pretty much set up again. Just had to install Delicious Bookmarks in firefox, and gphpedit for writing code and it was sorted.

Do you have any interesting uses for your netbook? Developing on the go? Warstumbling? Let me know in the comments

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