SvOlli's EeePC hacks

Using 2 GB RAM under "Asus Linux" (701 only)

If you replace the 512MB RAM module with a 2GB one, the Linux supplied by Asus will only use 1GB of it. Here's what I did to overcome this limitation. Please read this documentation at least once in full, before starting any actions. It should save you some time.

I will take no responsibility if these will short instructions will wreck your EeePC. If you don't like this, don't do it.

1. First of all I compiled my own kernel from the sourcecode asus supplied. I used exactly the same configuration that Asus claims to use, except for the memory option "High Memory Support", where I selected "4GB" instead of "off". You don't have to do it, you can just download my kernel: vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc-2gb.bz2 (Size: 1298400; Date: 2008-02-01, 01:42 CET).
2. Once you've got the kernel, copy it into the home directory of the default user (/home/user) on the EeePC.
3. Since you can't copy it to the desired place directly use a Live-CD / Live-USB Linux distribution to boot the EeePC and log in as root at used the following commands to integrate the new kernel.

4. # mkdir /eeepc/1 /eeepc/2
   # mount /dev/sda1 /eeepc/1
   # mount /dev/sda2 /eeepc/2
   # mv /eeepc/2/home/user/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc-2gb.bz2 /eeepc/1/boot
   # bzip2 -d /eeepc/1/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc-2gb.bz2
   # vi /eeepc/1/boot/grub/menu.lst
   # umount /eeepc/1
   # umount /eeepc/2
   # fsck.ext2 -f /dev/sda1
   

5. Two important notes:
   • The name of the partitions might differ from /dev/sdaX. Trying different live distros I've seen /dev/sdbX and /dev/hdcX. You can find out which one you should use by typing "fdisk -l". The disk you're looking for has a forth partition "EFI (FAT-12/16/32)"
   • "vi /eeepc/1/boot/grub/menu.lst" is the command used to open up the configuration of the boot loader. Of cause you can use any editor you like that comes with the distribution you use. nano is a very popular alternative. Just make sure that it doesn't fold the text automatically (nano uses the "-w" option).
6. Changes to menu.lst:
   • Duplicate the four lines starting with "title Normal Boot", the first one will be our new "2GB" entry and the other one will be the fallback solution.
   • So, change the first of our new lined to "title Normal Boot (2GB)" and in the third one to "kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc" to "/boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc-2gb" just by adding "-2gb" at the end of the filename.
   • Save it.
   • Now it should look like this:

     #
     # Configured by Xandros Configuration system.
     #
     hiddenmenu
     # default boot entry
     default=0
     	
     # Boot automatically after 1 second.
     timeout=1
     	
     # Fallback to Configure.
     fallback=3
     	
     title Normal Boot (2GB)
             root (0x80,0)
             kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc-2gb quiet rw vga=785 irqpoll root=/dev/sda1
             initrd /boot/initramfs-eeepc.img
     	
     title Normal Boot
             root (0x80,0)
             kernel /boot/vmlinuz-2.6.21.4-eeepc quiet rw vga=785 irqpoll root=/dev/sda1
     [...the rest is untouched...]
     

     The inserted lines are bold, changes are in red.
7. If anything is wrong with the new kernel you can switch back by holding F9 during startup and selecting "Normal Boot". Also note, that these changes is now part of the factory settings and will be unaffected by any restoration.

D1X-Rebirth

The Samba Security Leak (701 only)

Firefox 3

eeetray

History:

2008-11-17:

Added eeetray.

2008-10-24:

Added gtk+ libraries for Firefox 3.

2008-02-12:

Added recommendation about samba security leak.

2008-02-11:

Added D1X-Rebirth Download

2008-02-03:

Added note about "F9 during startup"-feature.

2008-02-02:

Initial release of this page and everything on it.

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