The Custom PC guide to hacking and modding the Asus EeePC

Posted at: Thursday 24th April 2008 by Andrew Spode Miller

The Asus EeePC might be tiny, but its slim dimensions and lightweight price tag have attracted plenty of interest. Out of the box, it's a bit of a bare bones machine, so we assigned Andrew Spode Miller the task of hacking, modding, updating and improving it to see just how far you can take this mini-marvel.

The Asus EeePC has inspired a whole new genre of low-cost, ultra-portable devices, and ever since its launch, other companies have been scrambling to design their own cheap, tiny laptops. The EeePC isn't only eliciting envy from other IT firms though - if you're the owner of an EeePC then you've probably already experienced your friends picking it up 'just to have a look' as soon as they spy it on the table. The EeePC is a great little device that quickly becomes difficult to live without; it takes less than 20 seconds to power up, and you can be browsing the Web, watching videos, listening to music or writing an article in seconds. However, after the initial flush of excitement, frustrations can surface. With its one-button, 'reset to factory default' option and cuddly OS graphics, the EeePC can often seem more restrictive than a typical full-size computer. In this article, we'll show you just how wrong this assumption is, and how easy it is to build on the work Asus has done to create an even better ultra-portable - all without breaking the bank. If you don't have an EeePC, then unless you have giant hands, you should buy one. And then read this article again.

First things first

There are a few procedures that you'll need to repeat in this article, so before we go any further, here's a guide.

1. Opening the terminal. You can get to the terminal by pressing CTRL+ALT+T. You'll need this a lot, as most features are locked away in the console.

2. Once in the terminal, we'll be using a program called Nano to edit files. Like Notepad or any other basic text editor, it's very easy to use. For instance, 'nano /home/spode/myfile' will open my file ready for editing. Nano's one irritation is that when editing long lines, it tends to shunt text down to the next line. If this happens, just use delete/backspace to put everything back on one line. CTRL+X will quit, with a prompt for you to save beforehand.

3. Remember that in Linux, the file system is case-sensitive. 'Spode.txt' and 'spode.txt' are considered to be different files.

4. If you type in the beginning of a filename, pressing TAB will autocomplete the name. This can be very useful if you're typing in a lot of repetitive names.

5. If you're editing anything outside your /home folder, the chances are that you'll need to use the 'sudo' command to gain root privileges. For example, 'sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list.'