Two modifications I made to the system. First, upgrade the RAM from the standard 1GB to the maximum of 2GB (mainly because I need Windows to run acceptably on this system) and second, change over the standard 160GB harddrive for a 64GB OCZ Vertex SSD.
The main function of the system will be running the Z22SE engine tuning software for my Opel Speedster. The netbook is nice and compact, so easy to use in the car.
On the Asus EeePC there is a bootbooster option in the BIOS. This option requires a special partion on the harddrive. It uses to cache the system situation after initialisation of the BIOS and when the cache is valid, loads it of the drive, minimizing the time the system spends in the BIOS.
I migrated the system from the original harddrive to a SSD and had to remake the partition. The partition table on the SSD looks like this:
Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System /dev/sda1 * 1 3917 31463271 7 HPFS/NTFS /dev/sda2 3918 5223 10490445 83 Linux /dev/sda3 5224 5226 24097+ ef EFI (FAT-12/16/32) /dev/sda4 5227 7783 20539102+ 5 Extended /dev/sda5 5227 5488 2104483+ 82 Linux swap / Solaris /dev/sda6 5489 7783 18434556 b W95 FAT32
The bootbooster partition is number 3 with the ef id (EFI).
The diference between starting with or without bootbooster is shown in the video below.
As I'm not much of a windows guy, I had some issue's with Windows 7 Starter that is included with the netbook. Initially I assumed it was me begin stupid, not being able to find the setting to change the picture at the login screen and the wallpaper on the background. It turned out this is a standard "feature" of the starter edition. Luckily it is possible to change both. For the login screen, drop your background picture (with correct resolution and not larger then 256KB) in the folder:
Changing the wallpaper is a bit more complex, but I found some generic steps somewhere on the internet.
The new wallpaper should be active after a reboot.
To improve startup I removed a number of services from system start. As I don't need much functionality on the netbook, it is quite a list. To change this, press Windowskey + R and type in msconfig. I unchecked the following list from the startup tab:
To free up diskspace I removed the software I don't use anyway. This also is quite a list :)
Installing Debian on the system was a breeze. I just used my standard jumpstart image by booting the system over the network. Using the standard Debian kernel I got most of the functionality. Network (wired and wireless) are working without a hitch. The more specific things like LCD backlight control are a bit dodgy. Performance is pretty good.
Used the netbook a couple of times in the car. Looks like expected battery life for my usage is about 8 - 10 hours. Pretty good for this type of system, and very usable for my goals.
