Okay, so I made the mistake of buying an EEE PC 1000. While i adore the way the laptop is set up, I'm still getting used to the software pre-installed on it (which, as far as I can tell, seems to be some sort of hybrid of linux and windows XP).

The first problem I had was that there was that the spell check, supposedly part of the pre-installed Star Office 8 package, didn't work. I googled the issue and, thanks to forums like these, found quite a few people with my issue and was able to fix it (after about five different attempts).

One of the attempts involved installing openoffice. However, when I tried to install that via the terminal (there's no other way to install things on the EEEPC), only half of it installed before it returned with an error. I now have useless icons on my desktop that I can't get rid of.

Neither can I uninstall/fix/remove any of the open office packages, OR install any updates via the EEE PC, or install/uninstall any more programs. I'm at my wit's end. Every time I try "apt-get install -f" (which is what I'm advised to try whenever the updates don't install) open office tries to install itself and gets the same error message:

E: sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

Now, I know the reason it won't install is because I was supposed to uninstall star office before I installed open office, but by the time I got that far I had already fixed the spell check and didn't need open office. Now I can't get rid of it, or install/update anything else.

Help, please?

You would probably be much better off completely wiping the preinstalled Xandros OS and replacing it with something like Ubuntu optimized for the Eee.

The default Xandros OS is really only designed to present the most user-friendly interface possible; not to be changed or modified. The Xandros OS works well enough if you never want to do anything beyond use the core applications installed with the system, but beyond that it is pretty terrible.

When I got my Eee, I lasted about 3 days with the stock OS before I had to wipe it and install something else. It just isn't suitable for serious use, at least not what I would consider serious use.