A few days ago I got myself an Asus EEEPC to experiment with it being in a role of a small server and a tiny internet kiosk. I installed Debian on it, but the process was not for the feint of heart, that’s for sure. First of all the d-i font was messed up and all the menus overflowed the screen making it very hard to select anything. Additionally it seems very strange to me that there was a special d-i image made for EEEPC, but that image did not include built-in support for the computers wired or wireless network interfaces. That made my day highly problematic as I do not have an easy way to get to the Internet via a wired connection and the provided d-i image did not have enough files on it to finish the base install without networking.
This again made me think that the approach Ubuntu took is more favorable in most situations – have the install image boot a mostly functional system (it does not have to be X even) and then install from there. It actually feels more flexible than using the highly restricted d-i environment.
I will be looking to make a Debian rescue image designed for the EEEPC that you could dd onto a USB key, boot from and have a minimal Debian system with working ethernet, wifi and some basic rescue tools and a way to install a basic Debian system as well. That should make it much easier for people to get Debian onto their EEE PCs. I do hope that the Debian EEEPC project will improve as well.
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3 Comments
we are working on including the drivers into the installer image. currently the main problem with it is the lack of people having the knowledge of building custom images.
we also could need a bit more manpower so if you have some spare time… ;-P
Strange. I thought we had solved atl2 in the image that had those problems with borders (built 16-Feb-2008,) but maybe somehow you got hold of the older image or the wiki was not updated at the time you tried to indicate atl2 now works. The borders problem should be fixed in the next release.
Anyway, our custom images are just a workaround until we can include atl2 in the standard d-i. In the meantime, we thought it would be better to make available what we have so far than hold off and have no images at all. It will surely improve in time.
As for lacking wireless drivers, you can hardly complain about debian-eeepc not including them, as the standard d-i doesn’t either. When d-i adds support we’ll have it too.
Finally, yes, an integrated live system / installer system is planned, too, but we have plenty of more fundamental infrastructural issues to solve first before doing anything about this.
The latest eeepc Debian installer image is much easier and more streamlined in it’s approach. Well done eeepc Debian team. it just keeps on getting better.
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