Hi everyone. I am getting one of these babies:

http://www.asus.dk/product.aspx?P_ID=zNIiqr35mY7CBZCp

And I want to install Linux on it (probably Debian). I have no knowledge of Linux, really - I only had a few different distros on my macbook for dual-booting long ago, but it was mostly for fun.

I am looking for advice as to what distro and window manager i should install. The netbook will ONLY be used for the following:

-Reading and writing documents & spreadsheets (OpenOffice)
-Reading pdf's and saving in pdf format
-Organize data from my camera and from my dictaphone (the netbook has an SD-card slot, so I am looking for something that supports that, and the dictaphone mounts as an external fat32-drive)
-Play wav-files from the dictaphone
-Listening to music (mp3)
-Accessing internet (facebook, internet banking, flash/youtube)
-Using printers (LAN-print as well as a usb samsung laserprinter)

And I am looking for a system that is:

-Fast & responsive (it would be ok if it looks kind of nifty too - I am an avid OS X user, so I do like my vanilla, although it is only a secondary thing)
-Easy to use
-POWER EFFICIENT - the netbook is reported to have 11 hours of battery life (which I know won't hold true in real life), and I wouldn't mind if Linux could press a few extra minutes of the battery compared to the Windows7 Starter version
-Relatively small sized OS
-Supports the features and hardware of the ASUS EEE PC 1005P (also the multi-touchpad featured on the netbook)

Any ideas or hints or suggestions from "the community"?

-Simon

I wouldn't recommend debian in that case. The only reason I'd recommend something else is that debian uses slightly older version of the kernel, which MIGHT not support your wifi-card out of the box. I'm not saying that you wouldn't be able to get it working but it might require more effort.

I'm running slackware 13 on a similar specs netbook, but you might actually be better off using crunchbang or archbang. These are designed for netbooks. They don't take up much space and are light. Previously I used both of them on my netbook. I'd say that crunchbang (based on Ubuntu) is more user friendly for a person not exprienced in linux, archbang (based on Arch), on the other hand, is more customisable and slightly quicker (but it does require some configuration).

I'm not sure about the multi-touch feature, but apart from that you'll be fine.

Welcome to the forums! Ubuntu is a very popular, beginner-friendly distro based on Debian. I found this thread on the Ubuntu Forums regarding the EEE 1005P: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1390856

Another good resource is the forums at http://eeeuser.com

And if you are thinking pure Debian instead of Ubuntu: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC

So the smartest thing to do (for a noob like me) would be to install one of the Netbook-versions available instead of "the real deal"?

What about eeebuntu 4 (which apparantly has dropped ubuntu and went straight to Debian)? Does anyone have experiences with that? I think it is only in its beta-stage, but is it usable?

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If you don't want to spend time tweaking things, netbook distros would probably be the best option. Ideally, try a few of them (you've got some recommendations above) and see which one works best for you.

I'd assume that Eee* distros would be best configured for Eee* netbooks, but I don't know how it works in practice.

You can use either Ubuntu or Ubuntu Netbook Remix, whichever you prefer. The only difference is the user interface (the Netbook version has a big-icon launcher that some users prefer on small screens); there is no difference in the core system or in hardware support.

I personally have not tried eeebuntu 4, can't help you there. I tend to shy away from special "netbook only" distros, as I have found the major distributions (Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, etc.) support my two netbooks just fine. But then again I don't have a 1005P, maybe it has some super-secret feature that requires a special eee-specific distro.

Best thing you can do at this point is burn a few Live CDs or Live USBs and take some distros for a test drive. That is the best way to find out for sure if a distro works well on your hardware and fits your sense of style.

@Stormboy:

I will also toss in a recommendation for the Ubuntu 10.04 Netbook Edition. (Which is odd, because I've traditionally detested Ubuntu, for reasons I will not be going into on this thread.)

I installed said OS on my ASUS MK90H netbook last night, and it's running like a champ. IMO, the "netbook optimized" UI is absolutely brilliant. Post-install there were a couple personal preference items I took care of (disabling bluetooth, cupsd, and avahi-daemon, plus installing Chromium), but it's actually quite respectable without much tweaking.

Sorry -- I'm too lazy to go through your entire list of needs point by point. But nothing you've listed seems particularly daunting. As for support for your ASUS model, the cool thing is when you boot with the install media and enter the live environment, you have the option to run a nice, pretty "System Testing" applet. It runs numerous checks on your netbook to confirm that the important pieces - e.g. wifi, power saving, sound, keyboard, et al. - are actually working. If they're not, you simply don't install the OS.

Arch. Hands down.

I use an eeepc901, and I tried many distros, including those "customized" for the model. They all had issues and failed to perform the way I wanted (which is almost exactly what you specified). Arch is clean, slick, and utilitarian. The basic kernel works out of the box.

You have to be willing to learn a bit about it, namely how to get only the features you want.

I use LXDE for a desktop environment. It's the lightest available with user-friendliness, and it comes with Openbox as an excellent window manager.

However, I've replaced Openbox with Compiz-Fusion as a window manager. I find it indispensible for the small screen, and I make up for its heavy resource use with my otherwise light-weight design. Plus I can impress friends with the eye candy.

Arch can sometimes (~twice yearly) throw you for a loop when something gets updated and knocks out a configuration you thought was stable. Like the wifi card not working all of a sudden. All it takes is a trip to the forum to find the change you need to make to your rc.conf file or the like. It can be frustrating if you don't like interruptions.

And you'll have to decide on the apps you want and install the packages from the repository. If you don't want the fuss, then just install Gnome or KDE and be done with it. But if streamlining is your goal, then you'll have to put the time into learning how to get what you want. The Arch community is very helpful and has a pretty thorough wiki.

Good luck!

Outside of Arch, you may wish to look at pclinuxos-mini-2010 AKA pclxde, as a worthy candidate. Quick, responsive, fun, and with access to the Mandriva repos, almost as easily customizable as a Debian distro. In fact, with the alien package, one can use just that, packages alien to the native distro.

Unity´sTinyMe and Ultilex (¨The Ultimate Linux Experience¨) are worth mentioning, as well. Check out the latter at
http://ultilex.linux-bg.org/. It will surprise you.

By all means, have fun! And let us know how it turns out, please.

Hi All.

Well I got my netbook last week and I am running EB4 Beta 1 (Eeebuntu), which I really really like. So far everything has worked like a charm - had a few things to take care of (automounting ntfs partition, specific features for the eee, grub2 setup so i got rid of the bootmenu etc.) but it is really really nice. So much better than the win7 starter supplied with the netbook. I had SUSE running on a desktop pc as an experiment more than a decade ago, and it is amazing how far linux has progressed. Next to OS X, this will be my preferred end-user OS, although I like the general philosophy and user-driven innovation of Linux a lot more. I might try some live installations of the other distros as soon as I get EB4 to act exactly the way I want it