[CALUG] My EeePC 1000 Review

Wed Aug 13 06:43:03 EDT 2008

David,

I applaud you for sharing your experience with EEEPC with us, but I have to
say couple of things that are wrong with your outlook:

1. EEEPC is not a desktop/laptop replacement, it is for a traveler who wants
to browse the internet, download some pictures from the camera and may be
use skype or IM to talk. That is the reason why it has such a slow CPU.

2. Replacing Xandros (built for this hardware) by Full/modified Fedora or
Ubuntu is an overkill on the hardware and a bad choice. Why in the world
would you kill a small hardware with such a bloated software? Its like
trying to fit an elephant into a car.

I have used the EEEPC 701 for a few days, but had to give it up as it did
not serve my purpose. But it serves the purpose of a computing platform when
traveling and it should stop at that (not meant for day to day computing).

If you know your security, then you should know that by turning off Samba,
Print sharing, NFS, you would have in effect turned off the so called bad
services, which is what a Firewall does.

So it is not really a question of Firewall not being there or services being
turned on, but the question of what distribution "you" like, so your whole
point about changing the OS. If you ask me, once you install the default
Fedora or Ubuntu, you will see lot more services than the 4 you have
mentioned running and you will have to turn then off on those distributions
too.

Trying to extract / compare EEEPC with a normal desktop / laptop is not
doing the product justice. Its like expecting Elevator qualities from a Ski
lift.

My intention was not to attack your comments but over the years I have read
so many reviews on different distributions where the reviewer has some
notions in mind and wants something out of a product which it is not meant
for and it just annoys me to no end.

-GGR
Rajiv G Gunja

2008/8/13 David A. Cafaro <dac at cafaro.net>

> 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
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> CALUG mailing list
> CALUG at unknownlamer.org
> http://lists.unknownlamer.org/listinfo/calug
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.unknownlamer.org/pipermail/calug/attachments/20080813/a72306bb/attachment.htm 