Debian on an Eee PC Netbook

January 8, 2011

(Republished April 2, 2024)

This blog documents the installation of Debian Linux on an Eee PC 1015-PEM-PU Netbook computer. It could serve as a how-to for anyone else thinking of purchasing an Eee PC and installing Linux, and will also serve as a evaluation and review of the Eee PC itself.

The Eee PC

The Eee PC is probably the stupidest name anyone could ever give to a computer. I don't even know how to pronounce "Eee" (is it like the sound you make when you see a mouse?).

Be that as it may, the Eee PC has the potential to be a fantastic computer. Asus, the long-time motherboard maker, really set the world on fire when they introduced the 'netbook' concept a few years ago. By shrinking the display and utilizing the power-saving ability of Intel's Atom processor line, they lowered the cost of a usable notebook computer to less than $300. Originally offered with Linux (to avoid the "Microsoft tax" on computers), most now come with Windows 7 Starter Edition, a stripped down version of Windows.

[BTW, how do you pronounce "Asus"? Is it "Aye-SOOSE", "Aye-SUSS", or "ASSes"? I prefer the first, but I've got no data to back up my preference.]

Early Netbooks often had solid state flash drives. These were small, very stingy with power, and mechanically robust to provide good durability. More recently, netbooks tend to come with traditional hard drives. My Asus has a 250 GByte conventional hard drive.

Asus is the "premier" netbook brand, but Acer and Dell have also produced very good netbooks.

I purchased the model 1015-PEM-PU. This has the following specs:

Atom Dual-core N550 CPU @1.5 GHz
1024 x 600 display (very crisp!)
250 GByte hard drive
1 GByte RAM (that I expanded to 2 GBytes)
63 Watt-hour battery that is claimed to offer 13 hours run time. (I get about 7 hours in real-world usage)
Mat black finished exterior (Blue and Red also available)
$380 from New Egg (but free shipping)
Windows 7 Starter (which I removed in favor of Debian Linux)

I chose this model mostly because of the dual-core processor and the large hard drive. I had been very concerned that the atom processor just wouldn't have enough "umpf" to be useful, so elected to trade the 1.6 GHz single-core for the slightly more expensive 1.5 GHz dual core. (I'll speak more about performance later.) I also chose the Asus over the Dell or Acer because there is a well-established group installing Debian on the Eee. Also, I've read some casual comments that the quality of Acer & Dells is somewhat inferior to the Asus. Not having truly used either competitor, I don't know if those comments were well founded or not.

Operating System Selection

Being a Linux guy, there was almost no way I was going to leave Windows running this computer. The only potential problem I foresaw with Linux was Wireless connectivity, which has often been a problem for me.

On my Main desktop system, I run Gentoo. I love it's geekiness, but I shuddered at compiling all the software on the little 2-lung Atom. Also, Gentoo always requires a lot more work to get running than pre-packaged distributions. Again, the wireless had me worried. The actual wireless chip used in the netbook is critical; some are well supported in Linux, and some are not supported at all. Unfortunately, Asus does not publish which chips are in which models, and I suspect they feel free to change the chips whenever they like. I therefore wanted a prepackaged distribution that would increase the likelihood of success with wireless. (BTW, my Asus has the BCM4313 chip, which is supported by the more recent Linux kernels.)

My servers all run Debian, so I am very familiar with configuration settings. That gave Debian a big advantage. I've tried Ubuntu, but don't like the way it forces you into doing things their way (and why the heck did they move the "close" button from the right corner - where God intended it - to the left corner? Yech!) Debian, was therefore the natural choice. Also, there is a very active Eee PC Debian group (http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC) with a wiki dedicated to loading Debian on the Eee PC. According to this group, you have to load the "Squeeze" version of Debian, which is currently in its second beta release. Loading the current stable release ("Lenny") does not provide the proper wireless drivers. I am very familiar and comfortable with Debian's conservative approach to releasing only when ready, so their "Beta 2" is very similar in my mind to most distribution's x.1 versions.

Squeeze uses the Gnome desktop by default. I prefer KDE, but thought I'd give Gnome a try. I actually found the organization of the Gnome menus better (they made more sense and I could find things easier), but found the Gnome wireless tools somewhat confusing. I therefore loaded KDE over Gnome and now run my old friend KDE exclusively. Squeeze loads the 4.4.x version of KDE, which is still a little goofy in my humble opinion. The nicest improvement over KDE 3.x is the inclusion of the compiz eye candy, which I love!

I therefore downloaded Squeeze beta 2.

Making a Linux Bootable Thumb Drive

In order to backup the Asus hard drive, and to test Linux compatibility, I had to boot a "live" Linux distribution. The granddaddy of all Live distributions is Knoppix, currently at version 6.4. Knoppix has a reputation (well deserved in my opinion) for finding and enabling all sorts of hardware. If I could get the system and wireless to work with Knoppix, I knew I could get it to work with Debian.

Knoppix offers several flavors of live distributions. I chose the basic one and downloaded the iso file from one of their mirrors. But then I hit a snag. The Asus does not have a CD-ROM drive, but it can boot from the USB port. I don't have a USB CD-ROM, so I had to make a bootable version of Linux. How to make a bootable thumb drive?

Making a bootable thumb drive seems like one of those things that should be very simple to do. Unfortunatly, it seemed the only simple way to do it was to use a Windows utility (Yipes!) to make the thumb drive bootable and install the iso file so it would load properly. Later, I found the program Unetbootin on sourceforge, that has both Windows and Linux versions. The Linux version worked like a charm (although my first attempt failed for some reason I don't understand.)

I eventually used this program to make bootable versions of both Knoppix and Debian Squeeze.

Knoppix loaded very well once the thumb drive was set up properly, and easily detected and used wireless. I was in business!

First Boot & Backing Up the Original Disk

My plan had been to backup the original Asus hard drive to a USB disk so that I could always revert to Windows if I found Linux failed to work as I had hoped. My plan therefore was to boot to a live version of Linux on a USB flash drive, then copy the entire Asus hard drive before it had even booted to windows once. This would leave me with a pristine backup of the original machine.

Trouble began when I tried to boot to a Linux USB thumb drive. Instead of showing a BIOS initialization screen, the Asus immediately (and I mean immediately) jumped into a Windows 7 initialization screen, and began asking me my location, name, etc. I tried to stop this process, but somehow only succeeded in corrupting the Windows 7 install. Later, I booted through the BIOS and hit "F9" to reload the windows install software from one of the hidden partitions on the hard drive. The second time Windows installed (which takes about 20 minutes), everything worked fine.

I eventually was able to boot to Knoppix on USB thumb drive, then plug in a USB hard drive, and copy the disk. I mounted the USB disk on /mnt/sdb1, then used this command from a Knoppix text window:

dd if=/dev/sda of=/mnt/sdb1/AsusDisk-Original-2010-12-27.img

This copied the entire Asus hard disk (all 4 partitions) to a single file on the USB disk. My USB disk was rather slow, so this took about an hour (ugh!).

Making Debian Squeeze Bootable Thumb Drive

In order to install Debian Squeeze, I had to make a bootable thumb drive with Debian. Once again Unetbootin came to the rescue and easily made a bootable thumb drive with Debian Squeeze. I encountered only 1 small problem. Since I like to use "expert install" for Debian, and wanted the KDE desktop instead of the default gnome, I had to go 2 menus deep into the Debian installation disk boot menu. Unfortunately, Unetbootin maps only the first level of menus. This meant I had to install the default Gnome, then install KDE separately.

The Debian disk I used was the "net install" version, so I plugged a network cable into the Eee PC for the installation. The wired internet connection worked flawlessly. Setting up a wireless connection still took some work, as I will describe in the next section.

For software, I allowed Debian to install the normal software (desktop, portable, and system)

I repartitioned the 250 GByte hard drive with reckless abandon. I kept the small 4th partition, which I think is used by the Asus for something or other. The rest I made a large single partition (ext4 file system) and a 1 GByte swap partition.

Wireless on the Eee PC with Debian

The Eee 1015-PEM reports this hardware:

00:00.0 Host bridge: Intel Corporation N10 Family DMI Bridge (rev 02)
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:02.1 Display controller: Intel Corporation N10 Family Integrated Graphics Controller (rev 02)
00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family High Definition Audio Controller (rev 02)
00:1c.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 1 (rev 02)
00:1c.1 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 2 (rev 02)
00:1c.3 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family PCI Express Port 4 (rev 02)
00:1d.0 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #1 (rev 02)
00:1d.1 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #2 (rev 02)
00:1d.2 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #3 (rev 02)
00:1d.3 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB UHCI Controller #4 (rev 02)
00:1d.7 USB Controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH 7 Family USB2 EHCI Controller (rev 02)
00:1e.0 PCI bridge: Intel Corporation 82801 Mobile PCI Bridge (rev e2)
00:1f.0 ISA bridge: Intel Corporation NM10 Family LPC Controller (rev 02)
00:1f.2 SATA controller: Intel Corporation N10/ICH7 Family SATA AHCI Controller (rev 02)
01:00.0 Ethernet controller: Atheros Communications AR8132 Fast Ethernet (rev c0)
02:00.0 Network controller: Broadcom Corporation BCM4313 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN Controller (rev 01)

Wireless is handled by the Broadcom BCM4313 chip. It needs to download firmware and use the "brcm" driver (not the B43 driver). In Debian, you need to load the "firmware-brcm80211" package. You will also need the "firmware-b43-installer" and the "b43-fwcutter" packages.

Once these were loaded (which was not done by default), wireless was essentially painless to get working.

Other System Software Setups

Contrary to all the scare stories on the Web, I prefer to run as root in Linux. The fun I have from Linux is not using it, but re-engineering it. I spend 90% of my time fiddling with settings and loading and trying various programs. Once it's setup, I'm bored. Consequently, I refuse to constantly sudo into programs when I could just stay as root.

The scaremongers make 2 reasonably good points about the dangers of running as root:

You can mess up the system; and
You might open your system to bad people and in turn allow them to harm others.

Well, I enjoy messing up my system, because then I have to fix it. As for the chance of opening up my system to bad people.... well, lets just say I find this a rather unlikely probability.

I made 2 changes so I would boot directly to KDE as root:

Firstly, I rename "/usr/sbin/gdm" to "/usr/sbin/gdm-saved" and renamed "/usr/bin/kdm" to "/usr/bin/kdm-saved". These 2 changes prevent either gnome or KDE from starting at boot and demanding a non-root login. Secondly, I changed rc.local so that the system would automatically start KDE as root. I added the lines:

su -l root -c startx

Now, when I power up, the Eee jumps immediately into KDE with a root session. Yes, if I lose my computer, I'm hosed. Such is life.

I hate touchpads. I find them difficult to use, and they are in absolutely the wrong place when typing, since my "dangling thumb" invariably taps the pad and moves the cursor while I'm typing.

The program tpconfig helps. Run "tpconfig -t 0" once, and it reduces the sensitivity of the pad. There are programs which supposedly shut off the touchpad while typing, but they are based on the synaptics pad, which apparently is not what is in the Eee. Apparently, there are Ubuntu programs that fix this, but I have not (yet?) gotten them working.

Eee PC Review

I wanted a netbook for 3 reasons:

They're cool and geeky
They are very portable
The battery life is excellent

However, I had 3 major fears about the Eee PC.

It would be too slow to be useful
The keyboard would be too confining to be usable
The screen would be too small

The Eee has satisfied my desires, and I am not disappointed (too much) with its limitations.

I have been delighted with the speed and responsiveness of the Eee. I suspect the dual-core CPU plays a part here. I have an old 2.5 GHz Pentium IV desktop that is a dog compared to the Eee. Even my 3 GHz Quad core AMD desktop doesn't seem too much faster than the Eee.

The keyboard on the Eee stinks, but it is not much worse than any other portable keyboard. I love the old "clicky" IBM keyboard (I have a clicky Unicomp that I like very much) with lots of key travel and good mechanical/audible feedback. The worst part of the Eee keyboard is the touchpad, not the keyboard. If I could keep from tapping the touchpad by mistake, I'd be a lot happier.

Battery life is excellent. I recently left the Eee on with the lid closed all day at work. The WiFi remained active, and the CPU governor was set to "on demand" mode. I powered on around 7:00 AM, and played with it a little at lunch. By 4:00 PM, it was down in the 10% range. Had I tried to reduce power usage by dimming the display or setting power-saving mode, I'm sure I could have squeezed another hour out of the battery. By contrast, my 1.5 year old company-issued Dell laptop lasts about 3 hours on battery power.

Adding new wireless connections has so far proved easy and painless. The unit is very lightweight, and physically small, so portability is just as I expected.

The screen has a poor aspect ratio (1024 pixels wide but only 600 pixels high). I had worried that this was too short. My main desktop computer has the display turned 90 degrees, so the long direction is vertical. [Vertical screen make much more sense. Who reads books in landscape mode? Printed materials are naturally easier to read in a portrait mode. The only things that are superior in landscape mode are wide-screen movies and spreadsheets!] I compensated for the short screen by putting the KDE menu up the right side of the screen instead of along the bottom as congress has mandated. Somewhat surprisingly to me, I have not felt confined by the short screen. The screen itself is razor sharp, so you can make the fonts smaller than would otherwise be possible.

All in all, I am very happy with the Eee.

Other Quirks, Oddities, & Annoyances

There are a couple of quirks and oddities with the Eee, many of which are driven by Linux.

There is no capslock indicator. Aggravatingly, KDE 4.x does not have a widget to show capslock status.
Due to Debian Linux, the WiFi on-off switch does not work. WiFi is on all the time.
The screen does not open as far as I'd like. When looking down on the Eee, it would be nice to bend the screen back farther so it would face me more directly.
The darn Windows 7 sticker was stuck on at an angle. If they have to add their stupid advertising, the least they could do was put the sticker on squarely! Luckily, a razor scraper allowed me to peel off the sticker without damaging the plastic finish.
The mat finish on the outside is very nice at resisting fingerprints.
The power plug is a little on the small and weak side. I'd like it to be a little beefier.
It was aggravating to have to remove the 1 GByte RAM chip in order to upgrade to 2 GBytes. Anybody want to buy a 1 GByte DIMM?
Skype for Linux won't run on the AMD64 Debian kernel. It has to be in 32-bit mode.
KDE can't activate sleep mode. A separate script is needed for this.
Sleep mode kills WiFi connections. A cold reboot is needed to reestablish connection (or at least, I haven't found the fix yet).
Linux sees the Atom as a quad core processor. There are 2 cores, and each core can run 2 threads. It's kinda neat to see the CPU meter chugging away with 4 CPUs!