Hello community!
I have a question regarding what distro to put on an Asus EEE PC 701.
I want a light distro capable of running Wine, and therefore being able to install Office 2007 and WLM. (No, i don't want aMSN or OpenOffice). And it has to recognize the drivers (wireless, sound, graphic, cam) and has to fit in a 4GB SSD, so the smaller the better.

And i would also like to know how to install the so said distro on my netbook, since it doesn't have a CD drive. (I know it has to be through USB thumb drive), but, what to do?

Also, please link me to a tutorial on how to install Wine, Office 2007 and WLM.

Thanks,
Ruix

Arch+Crossover Office.

Arch would be good at keeping your install size small. I would also go with xfce desktop or just a window manager to keep the install size small and the performance zippy.

Arch has great support for the eeepc. There is a custom kernel for the eee, and all the function keys work. It won't hold your hand as you install it, but it has excellent documentation. And it's not really difficult if you can follow instructions.

Crossover Office is your best shot at running Office 2007. Even then it's only rated as bronze, so you may not have full functionality.

How about EeeXubuntu?
Any thoughts on that one?
I'd like to have the Ubuntu interface. Gnome one.
Will crossover work with Office and WLM installer? Would i be better off using Wine?
Can i format my harddrive when doing the Linux distro setup?

Hello Ruixituh

your on the right track dude

check it out, there are so many good distros coming out for the little netbooks

Now, like you need to pick one thats usb friendly
and then you gotta install it to usb right?

and does those netbooks boot off usb?
i guess so right?

Do you have a seperate PC?
does that other pc have linux installed?

or do you got a ubuntu or some kind of linux livecd?

Microsoft Office 2007 system requirements:http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/pr...668651033.aspx

Notice that even for the basic edition, you need 1.5 GB of hard drive space. A lot on a 4 Gigabyte drive.

But worse, you need 1024x768 resolution. Which the EEE 701 doesn't have. Unless you're prepared to pan around a desktop larger than the physical screen size (which is never very usable), or you're connecting an external monitor (which defeats the point of a netbook), you thus can't use Office 2007.

@Ruixituh: I generally agree with cantab. Your hardware (netbook) does not match your needs (OS + full-on office suite under emulation).

Let's ignore the paltry 4GB drive space for just a moment. You have 512MB RAM, and an Intel Celeron in that thing. (My friend has the same netbook.) The setup you're trying to get together - assuming it will work at all - is going to run like dog s--t.

You're relegated to Windows, my friend. (Unless your requirements or your hardware changes.)

As stated, the minimal amount of space you have is going to limit your choice dramatically. That's why I suggested something with a more minimal install approach. Considering what you suggested, I thought you might have asked partly for the sake of tinkering. It's not an easy endeavor in other words.

Crossover Office is a modified version of wine specifically setup to improve office compatibility. Getting newer versions of office to work can be a challenge in itself without trying it on a low resolution netbook.

By luck, you may get it installed, but ALT+ left-click mouse dragging might get pretty tiresome. That is if the office installer even lets you install it. It may do a resolution check. You may be able to get around this by using an external monitor though.

Sorry. I know you're looking for an easy answer, but in this case, there isn't one other than using Windows XP and an external monitor. And even then it will probably take some pruning.

I actually got 1GB ram. The Office never checked for the resolution before. It worked very well when i had windows installed, and i understand the compatibility won't be 100%, therefore won't be so fluid.

So, I'm better off installing Arch? Can you link me to the special edition for EEE?

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/..._Install_Guide
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Asus_Eee_PC_701

Check those out and then decide whether or not you care to do that much hands on in your install.

You might want to check pupeee out. You can install it easy to a flash drive and play with it. It's easier to install than Arch, and It also takes up very little space and runs well on a USB flash drive.

http://www.liliputing.com/2009/04/pu...-netbooks.html

I feel ArchLinux needs to much space to install, and i really only have 4GB.
I'm planning the install to ocurr on the 4GB ssd.
I think Pupee Linux is nice, will it be able to install wine and then Office 2007? Also, can i install the Ubuntu desktop on it? so the desktop looks like Ubuntu gnome?

Besides, I'm not planning on installing the full Office 2007 package. Im going to install Word, Powerpoint, Excell and possibly Outlook.
That should bring the 1.5GB used spaced a notches down...
I don't want a distro with the "looks" of Xandros... A little to babied...

I was looking for eeexubunto... But then again I don't know how much disk space it will take.

Hi Ruix, I know this is not the answer you want to hear, but with a slow processor, tiny screen & keyboard, and only 4gb of space, I would recommend a lightweight distro such as Puppy or SliTaz and lightweight applications (like Abiword and Gnumeric) for your office needs. Asking for Ubuntu's Gnome desktop and emulating Office 2007 for Windows on those specs is a pipe dream IMHO. I have 2 netbooks that I love for light web surfing, but I do all of my heavy-duty office tasks on my desktop.

ps eeeXubuntu is a "dead" project as far as I know.

Arch takes as much or as little space as you want it to. A base install plus a minimalistic graphical environment should come in pretty slim. On size it can't compete with something like DSL or Puppy, but Arch is a full-featured distro with, importantly, ease of updating an installed system (something DSL and Puppy lack as they are primarily designed as LiveCDs)

Vector Linux Light may be another option. It runs fine on a laptop much worse than your Eee, but I don't recall the disk space usage.

With 1 Gig of RAM things look a little better. But you'll still face the screen resolution issue. That's not insurmountable though.

Still, despite any initial learning, I think you'd have a better experience using say Abiword or Openoffice for most of your work. Or maybe even Google Docs.

You can always mount some of the partitions on a flash card or drive so you're not using all the 4GB SSD. I had Gentoo and Arch installed on my eee900 and both fit on the 4GB SSD. The Gentoo install was even using KDE3.5

With Arch on my eee900, I still have 2G free on my 4G SSD with plenty of software installed. I moved a couple of my mount points to the other slower SSD, but I'm finding it wasn't necessary. I didn't try installing Office 2007 though.

Combining your install with a flash card should allow you to install what you need. Even gnome if you need it. As for puppy, it has a package manager, but I am unfamiliar with it.

Can you guys tell me how to install the ArchLinux? And can it look like Gnome UBuntu? I just like the Gnome Ubuntu interface a lot. Will it recognize my EEE pc drivers? FN keys, webcam, graphics, wireless, sound?

I would like to install Arch Linux the faster possible. I need directions on what to download, and how to put it on my USB stick. I also need information on the Swap, and on installing Wine, so I can run Office 2007. Thanks

Please read through these documents carefully and decide if Arch Linux is right for you:

http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/The_Arch_Way
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Beginners%27_Guide

I personally love Arch, but it is not for everyone.

If you want to use Ubuntu, just use Ubuntu. It supports the eee very well.