[CALUG] My EeePC 1000 Review

Wed Aug 13 00:08:25 EDT 2008

Ok, I finally received my EeePC 1000 this week and have had some time  
to play around with it. Have to say I love the hardware, very well  
made. This thing is loaded. Though the default Xandros OS is nice and  
well integrated with the hardware, it's not going to meet my needs in  
the long run; I'll be upgrading to Fedora or Ubuntu in the near future.

I know there was some discussion on if the EeePC 1000 was too  
expensive or had lost the meaning of what being an EeePC is, but I  
have to say it's just what I was looking for. To give some background,  
I commute to work, and like to have a small light laptop with me in  
case of emergency work while I'm between home, job, or out traveling.  
Something simple that can provide net access, a browser, and a command  
line. For the past 4 years that has been my Sharp MM20 laptop. It had  
reasonable support for Linux and has worked very well for me. But it's  
4 years old, and that odd ball for a processor, the Transmeta  
Efficeon, is being left behind by Linux. The non-upgradeable 512MB of  
memory wasn't helping either. So I've been searching for a  
replacement, and for almost 1/3 the cost of my original MM20, I've got  
a more functional, just a little larger and little heavier, laptop.  
That's what I was looking for.

Hardware:

So, with that said, here is what you get with the EeePC 1000:

     * Intel 1.6Ghz Atom CPU - Seems to be quick enough, much better  
than the old Transmetta Efficeon
     * 1GB DDR2 400Mhz Main Memory
     * 10.2" 1024x600 LCD - Excellent brightness, looks great
     * Intel GMA 950 based graphics controller - So far, seems snappy
     * RaLink RT2790 Wireless 802.11n - Excellent Linux support,  
opensource driver, and connects at N speeds with WPA2 no problem
     * Atheros Corp, L1e Gigabit Ethernet Adapter - Ok, it says  
Gigabit in lspci but it's not, still it works
     * One 8GB SSD ( mounted as / ), one 32GB SSD (mounted as /home)
     * Bluetooth 2.0
     * MultiTouch Touchpad
     * 1.3MPixel Webcam, dual microphones, stereo speakers.
     * 3 x USB 2.0 ports, VGA port, Audio IN/OUT port, SDHC Card reader
     * 6 Cell Li-Ion Battery

I can't complain about the hardware, that's really what I bought this  
for. It meets every need that I had, hardware wise. Might have been  
nice if it was a little thinner and lighter, but that would have  
raised the cost. So far, the battery run time is incredible. I've left  
the latop sitting on my desk all day with all wireless on, Ethernet  
connected, using it every once in a while lightly, and it's still got  
50% charge left. That's insane! Perfect travel laptop.

Software:

I decided to try living with the default Xandros Linux that comes with  
the EeePC for a few days. I also figured it would give me time to  
collect all the information I would need to do a fully working install  
of Fedora or Ubuntu. Ignoring the security issues, which I will talk  
about later, I have to say the basic setup is pretty nice. Everything  
works, things are pretty clearly labeled, and it's easy to navigate  
around. I really do like how well they integrated in the hardware  
functionality, I've never had a Linux laptop work this well.  It's  
clearly designed for someone with much less Linux experience, but  
that's there target audience.  A list of software pre-installed can be  
easily found on the web. My minor gripes about the default Linux  
install are the following:

     * The default install of xorg was set to 16 bit and not 24 bit. I  
like my millions of colors (vs ~65K)
     * FileManager disappeared on me, though I found a way to replace  
it online and there are alternate means of accessing it
     * Could use more software to install through the Add/Remove  
Software system
     * Needs more mouse control, less speed more acceleration. Hard to  
hit small targets.
     * Since it's multi-touch, why can't double finger tap act as a  
right click like on Mac OS X?

Security:

Security being an interest of mine, I was curious to see what was  
setup by default on the Xandros OS for EeePC. This is where I  
confirmed that I'll be loading my own Linux on this. I found a couple  
of issues and some good points. First the good points:

     * Most services are turned off by default
     * It comes with a virus scanner to scan your documents and such.

Now the bad points:

     * Default user name of "user" with sudo (root) no-password  
required access
     * Default to instant login, though this can be changed via the  
Personalization icon under settings
     * No ipchains/iptables compiled into the kernel, NO FIREWALL!
     * Yes, it does have a virus scanner, but we're on Linux, I would  
rather have a firewall!
     * Broken updates, see below
     * Several open ports by default, bad

Here are the results of the nmap test:

Starting Nmap 4.20 ( http://insecure.org ) at 2008-08-12 13:51 EDT
Interesting ports on xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:
Not shown: 65531 closed ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
111/tcp open rpcbind
139/tcp open netbios-ssn
445/tcp open microsoft-ds
20032/tcp open unknown

So we have rpcbind, netbios-ssn, and microsft-ds open. Netbios-ssn and  
microsoft-ds are a big no no, even though it's samba that's providing  
the service (yes nmbd and smbd Samba daemons are started by default)  
so less likely to fall to the standard script kiddies, it's a big sign  
that says "Hello!!! Try to HACK ME!!!" when connected to the internet  
directly. I know they do this for convenience to improve the ability  
to file share with the EeePC, but why can't these be off unless a user  
actively chooses to share? Oh, and by default the laptop is part of  
"Workgroup" just like any other out of the box Windows system. As for  
rpcbind, it's up and running but no services are listed at the open  
ports.

Now port 20032 is interesting, according to netstat this is the  
nginx.conf program. This is some form of web-server namely "nginx/ 
0.5.33". Why on earth is there a web-server running on the EeePC? I  
haven't dug through the file system to find out what it is serving,  
but this is another one that makes me nervous. Since there is no  
firewall, I'm going to have to see what I can do with host.allow/deny  
or just stopping the process from starting.

As for the broken updates, most seem to work fine, but one "Asus  
Update System Update" download fails. Based on what I've found,  
apparently there are files missing on ASUS servers. Funny thing is  
they don't seem to believe people who try to tell them they are  
missing. Hopefully that will get resolved soon.

Personally, I'm not impressed with the security of the default Xandros  
Linux. There are open ports that just shouldn't be open and the lack  
of a firewall is very frustrating.

Conclusion:

I think this laptop is going to be a great companion for the near  
future. Once I get my own Linux distro installed and gain back a  
little more control, things should be good. Though the pre-installed  
version of Linux is functionally very nice, I just found too many  
drawbacks to use it, not the least of which were the security issues.  
The hardware more than makes up for it, so all is good!

Some comparison pictures can be found on the my blog post of this  
review:
http://www.cafaro.net/linux-related-information/eeepc-1000-linux-review/

Cheers,
David

David A. Cafaro <dac at cafaro.net>
Cafaro's Ramblings:  www.cafaro.net