I got my Eee PC 901, the 12GB version that comes with Windows XP, yesterday. Today, it runs Ubuntu 8.04. No, I'm not a Linux fanboy. In fact, I wanted Windows installed to use this netbook as my mobile office especially when I do presentations. But within 24 hours I learned that Windows XP is not fit for the Eee PC and the best alternative is a Linux one. So what went wrong with Windows? Updates. Yes, the very code that suppose to keep you safe and running fine broke my netbook. Like any good Windows user, the first thing I did when I got my computer was to install an anti-virus (I used AVG Free). Then I connected to the Net to update the AV as well as Windows. Now, do note that this simple netbook only has a 4GB SSD for the OS. There's another 8GB SSD as a secondary disk, and the Windows installation is on the 4GB one. As I left the updates to download and install in the background, I decided to install Microsoft Office 2007 on the 8GB disk. That went well and I even ran Word, which wasn't as sluggish as I thought it would be. While there was smooth sailing on the 8GB disk, little did I know that a ship wreck was about to take place on the 4GB disk! All of a sudden, I received a prompt that said I was running very low on disk space. I checked and to my amazement I was down to 52MB! I panicked, stopped the updates and tried to move as many files as I could to the 8GB disk. I even re-mapped the Desktop, My Documents, and Program Files to the 8GB. But even that wasn't enough. Updates kept coming for Windows and Office and these were critical updates! Many hacks later, Windows started acting weird. The Programs menu started displaying odd things and other programs vanished. I didn't know how to fix these, and the updates kept bugging me for an install. It became apparent that a 4GB system disk wasn't enough to contain Windows XP. So I went to look for an alternative and found that there were many Ubuntu projects that focused specifically on the Eee PC. I came across eeebuntu and eeeXbuntu but decided to settle on Ubuntu Eee, which looked like the most popular. It appears that all these were designed specifically for the Eee PC and based off the Ubuntu Netbook Remix. I absolutely love this OS. Not only does it install well, it is designed for netbooks. Windows XP isn't. Using Ubuntu Eee, you'll notice that the Windows sizes can't change, every window you open appears in full screen because netbooks already have small screens and it isn't wise to make multiple windows fit into the real estate. The only things that don't work upon install are the WiFi and the Webcam. The WiFi fix is easy actually because there's a native driver from Ralink, but there's a NDISWrapper method too if you want to use the Windows drivers. There's a great tutorial for that here. I'm yet to figure out the Webcam, but let's leave that for another 24 hours. Update: I re-installed Ubuntu Eee 8.04.1 and now everything just works. WiFi works perfect, it even has roaming (auto-detects networks). To get the webcam working was just turning it on in BIOS. Suspend manages to recover well now. The only bug I'm aware of is pressing Fn+F2 to turn off WiFi radio freezes the machine. Hope the next update fixes that. Looks like I've got a full fledged Eee PC without the stock OSs! =) Update 2: If you want to watch Kevin, Preetam and I discuss netbooks, click here.