Best Linux distro for ASUS EeePC 701SD
 

Hi there, new to LQ, have an ASUS EeePC 701SD, 900MHz, 1G Ram, 8G SSD. It came loaded with Linux but I loaded XP since I was not ready to learn a new OS. I am now considering going back to Linux and would like to know if a Linux distro will take up less of my precious 8G disk space and will I see a performance improvement over XP?
I currently use the EeePC mainly for Web browsing, email, downloading music and video (.avi) files.
I have many other questions regarding software availability and compatibility but will limit my first post.

Hmmmm, yea 8gigs is small, my 7000ct toshiba only has 160MB RAM and 4GB hd
and I was using slackware-12.2 in it with XFCE4, but it was at like almost 3gigs used
even after slimming it down alot.
Slackware is very nice, but not for minimal installs:)

anyway, I have just installed Tinycore-2.0 to it and it runs Fast!
and you can install or un-install anything at anytime, the base is only 10MB!
and you add apps from there-and there's lots of apps too.

ok, I have alot of stuff I'm getting ready to release for tc-2.0
and so if you wanna check out tc I can tell you whatever you need to know.

TC doesn't "install" like a reg os, it is the culmination of what DSL was supposed
to be, a "nomadic" os that runs in ram(or not).
The man who created MyDSL is the founder of tc(not the creator of DSL).

So, it's cool and if you wanna check out my beta Portable-Tinycore-2.0
that would help both of us:)
Now, portable runs off portable-qemu, like dsl-embedded, so you don't gotta reboot pc, install anything, etc.
just download it, untar it and double-clk either "tcrun.sh" or "tcrun.bat"
yes, it runs on windows too.
This way you can check out my custom tc-2.0 without having to burn cd, install to usb, etc.
It's portable 'cause it plays via qemu and can go on usb, etc
you don't gotta have qemu installed either, it's already there.
it's safe, can't hurt your pc or anything, it's virtual!

so, here's screenshots of lappy and portable
( http://multidistro.com/tinycore-shots/tc-scrnshots.html )
And I need to know now if you wanna check out the portable, as I can't put link here
as it's beta, but if you, or any member wants to check it out, private
message me or send email to thepenandpaperATgmail.com
so, answer this post and we'll talk,
also, other good distro's for small hd are
1) GoblinX-2.7(beta3.0)
2) Wolvix-1.1
3) Antix
4)TinyMe
and lots more too

Debian on my 701 using lxde only takes up 1.8GB and boots in 20 seconds.

DebianEeePC/HowTo/Install - Debian Wiki
http://wiki.debian.org/DebianEeePC/HowTo/Install

I'm running kubuntu 8.04 on my eee701. Very happy with it.
Useful links:
The EEE User Wiki and The EEE User Forums
Welcome to LQ!

I am writing this from my 701D running Slackware 12.2. The window manager is WindowMaker. See attached screen capture.

Overall this package runs well -- in my experience, better than eeebuntu.
Just about everything works -- webcam, 3D graphics acceleration, sound, wireless, suspend.

Installation may not be quite as simple as in other distros, but I can provide some pointers on how I did it.

Regarding the SSD space required, the way I look at it, 8GB ain't enough no matter which distro you choose; so, I put an old 40GB 2.5" drive in an external enclosure, connected via USB. Works great too.

Nish akiku!
never used windowmaker before
is it hard to setup like that??

Not hard at all, but you do need to compile the dockapps.
There are thousands of themes available and they are easily installed, and there's a script that searches for applications and automatically generates the menus.

I like WindowMaker because it is not a resource hog. It was developed over 10 years ago, so the eee hardware is more than adequate.

Don't tell that to my Asus EeePC 2gb Surf that is happily running ArchLinux in under 1.5gb.

I assumed the man wants to have more than a few hundred MB left to save files and documents, such as e-mail, mp3s, videos and such. :)

Yeah, I had slack12.2 on my 4GB hd 160MB ram lappy 7000CT and although it ran great and I got it down to about 2.3Gb installed with XFCE4, it still was almost filling up
with stuff, so I installed Tinycore with all kinds of apps, etc and now still have 2.5GB
of free space and have everything I had with slack + more.
small distro's are good for small drives.

I keep all of that on an SD card, so it is quickly transferable to my other Eee or my desktop.

If your having difficulties getting the ACPI and power stuff to work right you can always go the easy route and use EEEBuntu Base. You can install the netbook remix UI on top of that as well. Search in synaptic for netbook-launcher. Check it out
http://www.eeebuntu.org/index.php?page=base

The OP is long gone, and double-posted, despite a response, at the start.

Please don't continue to feed the trolls.

Up and running with Eeebuntu 2.0 NBR
 

Thanks to many of you for the comments/suggestions. After browsing many forums and posts I loaded Eeebuntu 2.0 NBR on a flash drive and managed to setup web, email, wireless etc. After getting somewhat confortable with the new OS I installed it last night. Installation was flawless and I am very happy with the results.
Now the fun starts, thanks again.
Mike

EeePC 701SD 8G SSD 1G Ram Eeebuntu 2.0 NBR

Pleased you got it working to your satisfaction,
and thanks for the follow-up.