There's already a whole online community of EeePC users, describing various aspects of the little machine in a wiki, chatting about the various variants that are being released, and describing various hackish things that they've already done to their machines.
The hack that intrigues me the most, of course, is installing Ubuntu, which would let me run all the software I run on my work computer. Well, not all of it, since it IS a subnotebook, but enough to do development and read docs on the train. The other hack is installing more RAM. But there's that "Warranty void if removed" sticker... <!-- SUMMARY_END -->
A couple days ago, it came out on the EeeUser site that Asus had announced that opening the RAM access door would not void the warranty. I wanted to do exactly that, of course, and also find out if my EeePC had one of those secret Mini-PCIe connectors, which would have let me add more RAM drive space. After printing a copy of Asus' announcement for my records, I broke that seal.
I'm bummed that my EeePC, a 7C unit, doesn't have the Mini-PCIe. Oh well. Still a great computer, and I can still add the 2GB RAM and expand it with SD cards. Anyway it's not actually a total replacement for a full-size computer.
On to Ubuntu. There are about 5 different posts describing how to install it, but most of them require a USB CDROM drive, a PC with no hard drive(?), or some such, so I opted for the instructions that involve creating an installer on a thumbdrive. Unfortunately, the PowerPC Ubuntu on my Mac doesn't have syslinux, so I'm here at the office on my work computer. I'm using these helpful instructions, collected by Mr. C.K. Sample III. Ubuntu on the Asus Eee PC: Part 1 (or How to run a functional Ubuntu install off a USB drive), which refers to PendriveLinux.com's USB Ubuntu 7.10 Gutsy Gibbon install, and Ubuntu on the Asus Eee PC: Part 2 (or How to Install Ubuntu on the Eee’s Internal Drive). UPDATE (2008-1-9): I just noticed most of this info is now on the Ubuntu site as How to install Ubuntu 7.10 "Gutsy" on the EeePC. Looks like most of it is just copied from the former pages.
I'm currently (7:15pm) downloading the Ubuntu 7.10 ISO on my work's darn-slow connection (43:56min left...)
UPDATE 20:17: ISO downloaded, burned, and successfully installed on the thumbdrive. Now working through the first page, getting the WiFi to work right.
UPDATE 20:28: Rebooted, and the wireless is working! I see Little Tokyo Unplugged! Now to install on the EeePC's internal drive...
UPDATE 21:04: Finished the install finally, and rebooting... the moment of truth... looks good so far... Ubuntu logo, progress bar... login screen! Now I'm running Updater, says it'll take another 25min to download on our slow connection...
UPDATE 22:18: Finally finished installing all the updates! That took forever! Rebooted and logging in again to get the wireless working. These instructions are excellent, but they take a long time...
UPDATE 22:39: Alright, got the wireless software installed again (i think() and rebooting... If the wireless works then we're done! And... looks like it works! Thank you, Mr. C.K. Sample III and all the people who put together the docs you aggregated! Ubuntu looks incredible on the EeePC - can't understand why Asus would want to use the interface that they did.