Asus Eee PC

Hiya all,

Other day I saw Asus Eee PC in pc world that selling for 200 pounds which is abit temping.

I do know the spec which is 900MHZ and 512MB Flash memory.
From what I have saw when I was playing on Asus Eee PC as it look so simple and straight forwards but I guess it pretty limited isnt it?

Had anyone got this Asus Eee PC and please let me know how you rate them or how good it is.

Save your money and get something better.

lots of information at http://www.eeeuser.com/

Lots of good feedback coming out about it, but people seem to fall into 2 camps, love it or hate it. For me, the whole size / weight thing is a big plus (<1kg, and smaller than a hard back book).

Personally, I think it's an excellent machine but I've been waiting for the new version with the bigger screen (released 11th May) and bigger drive.

It really depends what you want to do, for basic web browsing / documents etc it's pretty good (although many web sites end up needing you to scroll around).

You can install XP onto it (it comes with relevant drivers), and a lot of people drop it onto an SDHC card.

Somebody, and I can't remember who, tested Magicville on one (written in Blitzmax). Ran perfectly well, apparently.

My mainconcern with the EEE is the SSD. They are nice but similar to Flash they have a restricted amount of write cycles which will take care you have to switch it every now and then especially if you use it much.

I think I can wait until after 11th May and I guess that bigger screen and bigger drive mean the price would increase little abit more.

Plash: I know what you mean, Dual core Laptop is more powerful than Asus Eee PC but good things about Asus Eee PC is size/weight(but it is pretty basic laptop) where Dual core laptop get you everythings you need.

Apparently a 10" screen (the maximum size ASUS will go) model will be released later in the year.

I got one last month when I was in the US, and definitely love it. Now I have a small laptop I can take wherever I go, which is really lightweight. The 7" screen is a bit small, but not that small to make it useless.

If you have the money, are tempted to buy it, and don't have a good reason to save the bucks, I would definitely get one.

I think the lifetime (under hard use) for the SSD is around the 4 year mark (longer for more usual usage), which is probably about the product lifetime in any case. That said, if you put XP onto it, there are a few tweaks needed to stop it thrashing the disk.

I've been told not to worry about this whatsoever (I remember someone on the eeeuser forum saying that there's a good chance you'll get a longer life from a SSD drive than a standard one)

I bought one as soon as it came out and I love it. Its so small I can chuck it in my bag to work or on those long train journeys.
I expanded the memory to 2Gb for about 20 quid and I also bought an 8Gb SD card onto which I installed Ubuntu.
I also tried running windows on it and I was quite surprised at how well it worked and BMax worked no problems at all.

The issues I have in terms of BMax programming with Ubuntu on it is

1. The keyboard is a bit too small.
2. The screen is only 800x480. As most apps I write run in a 640x480 window its an issue as they dont fit on the screen.
3. I think there is an issue with the video card ( probably just memory size ). When a BMax apps end the screen finishes up all garbled if you are running compiz.
4. For some reason if you try to run a 640x480 windowed BMax app it fires up fine but the window is truncated to fit the screen so the bottom part of the window is just plain missing. Ive been meaning to report it as a bug but never really got round to it.

Im sure if you hang on a bit there will be plenty more better equivalents coming out soon.

I kind of think of it as the first US_Robotics Palm Pilot. It was a great little device but it took a few years before the really decent palm devices started coming out.

It is very much a love/hate thing. I happen to love it for what it is.. people that hate it seem to expect more from it that it can currently achieve.

Yes, small keyboard is a problem - too many typing errors :)

I like it - its fast, especially with BlitzMax stuff.

I love mine. It really is great for travel, meetings, presentations (with a projector), general day-to-day light usage. You shouldn't be put off by the drive wearing out, it really is a non-issue these days, google it.

GrahamK brought up the SSD in another thread, and I posted a link debunking that myth. The article I linked to describes in detail how the SSD actually stores data.

I run XP on my Eee and BlitzMax runs fine using OpenGL or DirectX drivers in full-screen or windowed mode.

The "issue" QuietBloke mentions is not an issue or a bug. He doesn't understand what he is doing. He is sizing the window by client size, so naturally it is bigger than the 640x480 he is shooting for. All you need to do is change the method you use for sizing your window.

Also, you can set the Eee display to 800x600. It does not mess up the way things look. To get the 600 pixels, the 480 pixel viewing area is scrollable so you can see apps that are up to 600 pixels high.

So what should I be doing ?

I have a BMax app where i set the graphics 640,480.

I run the app and the window it creates is not 640x480. The height of the window is reduced so it fits on the screen. ?

The 800x600 mode is not available with Linux.

With a bit of jiggery pokery I can get Linux to switch between 1024x768 and 800x600. The bigger size pans around. That is actually what I end up having to do in order to get my BMax apps to run with the correct sized window.

@QuietBloke: You should read the X-Term resolution (from the shell environment strings) and set the BlitzMax screen to the same resolution if you want to run it in fullscreen.

I think I have been mis-understood.
An example is my BlockInvaders game.
This runs in a 640x480 window.

Now when I ask for a 640x480 window I expect it to create a window that size.

When I run it on the eee under Linux it looks like this :



and when I drag the window up a bit I find the window height isnt just off the screen.. it has actually been truncated.

Eee has only 900x480 screen resolution, so if you ask for a window with 480 height, it won't fit on the screen unless you hide the Gnome menubar and the window title bar of your game too. I would just make the game run in a 600x450 or 533x400 window.

Im pretty sure when I had windows installed and I ran the app it still created the window at the size I requested and I could then simply drag it around to see it all.
I considered it as a possible bug because the application didnt fail saying it couldnt do it instead it just lopped off the bottom of the window and Im pretty sure under windows it created the whole window and you could drag it around to see it all.
Anyway.. enough of this... I only stated it as being a downside to the eee when running linux only to be told Im some sort of idiot.

It does that sort of thing with the built-in programs too...

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=21677&category_id=702&manufacturer_id=0&tid=eeepc900-w

the new 900 eee is on its way with a 9" screen and more storage.
but it still has the same intel graphics and processor sadly

Actually I see this behaviour under Linux as a benefit, since it teaches people to write cleaner code :)

QB it is because you are sizing by client area, so naturally the window size is going to be bigger by the time the borders/themes are created.

I can't help with Linux as I am unfamiliar with the API, but it is easy with Windows via the API's system metrics functions, and you can even specify in MaxGUI whether to size by client size or not.

This is not an Eee issue. This is a programmer issue.

I agree.. it is not an eee issue.. It might be a Linux issue and it might be a BMax issue. I dont see how it is a programmer issue.

Im not using any API calls.. Im using the bog standard BMax language.
I issue the command Graphics 640,480 and it creates a window. Under Linux it seems it wont necessarily be the size I asked for.
I can put up with this.. fair enough.. when I set the window size it might not be the size I asked for so I need to just check. Not a problem.
but.. when I use the GraphicsHeight() command to query how big the client area height is it quite happily reports it as being 480.
Im sure if I dig around I can find an API call to find the real height of the window but the point of BMax is that I shouldnt have to do that.
Therefore as stated originally "Ive been meaning to report it as a bug but never really got round to it.
"

It is not a bug though. For Windows, you can find help here:

MSDN Library:
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/default.aspx

I am not trying to give you a hard time, I am just trying to help. If you don't size your windows properly, then you can't complain when they aren't the size you want.

It seems we both seem to have very different views of what to expect from the language.
I like BMax because it has done all the low level and platform specific stuff for me and if it reports that my window is a certain height I expect it to be true. You seem happy to bypass the built in functions and get down low level and do it yourself.

I guess this thread has been hijacked long enough so we will just have to agree to differ.

I still like my eee PC though :)

I don't know if Duffer and Lumooja are trying to be willfully obtuse or if they're genuinely unable to understand anything he is saying, but QuietBloke has explained quite clearly that he's using stock BlitzMax commands and doesn't see why he should have to delve into writing his own window management code to do something it should already do. And I agree with him. There is a function here which does not do what it's supposed to do, and that's a bug - be it OS or language related - not a programmer issue.

As for whether it's a BlitzMax bug or a Linux bug, I really can't say for certain, but it's definitely platform specific. I create a 1280x1024 window in Windows on a 1280x1024 desktop (so with the client area it doesn't fit) but it's still created the right size and I can drag it around to see the bits which are off screen. Report it in the BMax bug report forum if you haven't already. If Linux isn't capable of creating a window of the correct size, then BlitzMax at the very least needs to return the size of the window actually created.

QB: You don't need to bypass the built in functions, MaxGUI has commands for this.

The Graphics Window command sets the window size by the client area, that is what it is supposed to do. The commands to get the size will naturally only return the size of the client area since that is the graphics object. This is what it is supposed to do.

If BMax did not do this for the Graphics Window, then you would need to use the API commands to get the client area so you would know what size to use for your graphics, backgrounds, etc. If you are NOT sizing by the client-size, then the client area will be very different from system to system depending on the theming being used. I am guessing this is why the Graphics Window sizes by the client area so your game will be displayed in the proper dimensions on all systems.

If you want to size your window differently, then you need to use MaxGUI or use the API commands.

If you are writing a program for Windows or Linux or OS X, you will always have to write your own message handler to properly deal with the messages received by the window of your program. This is how the operating systems work.

@Gabriel: I think I and QB have different principles. If I see a bug somewhere, I just make my own workaround for it. I've seen so many bugs in all kind of programs, that trying to bug report everything would take me 100 years. If I can make something work with an workaround, then its still better to have it working, than having to wait for a bug fix and doing nothing meanwhile. Of course I still report bugs, but I don't rely on that that they will be fixed.

skimmed after a bit (only a few posts to go but i though id see if anyone said this)
sounds a bit obvious to me but does it work

instead of windowed and getting it cropped off due to the title bars etc
why not have a 800*480 FULLSCREEN version centering the 640 image?