Asus to offer Linux-less Eee PCs globally
XP to be pre-installed
Asus has formally announced it will begin offering outside of Japan its tiny Eee PC laptop with Windows XP pre-installed in place of the Linux distro it's offered to date.
That's not to say the Eee will not ship with Linux. While Asus was a little vague on the matter, it's likely it will offer the Eee in multiple forms, some with XP, others with Linux.
When Asus rolled out the Eee in Japan back in January it offered the sub-notebook with XP as its primary OS. There the 4GB machine is dubbed the 4G-X to distinguish it from the regular, Linux-based 4G model.
Asus Eee PC and pal: happy with Linux, thank you
Asus has always offered Windows drivers for the Eee's various hardware components, allowing folk who preferred XP to buy the OS and install it on their own.
However, way back in October 2007, shortly after it released the machine as a Linux-only box, the company said it planned to offer the Eee with Windows pre-installed at some point in the future.
At the time, Microsoft seems shocked that anyone would want to offer a PC without Vista and pledged to help Asus work to cram the new OS onto the Eee's small solid-state drive. So it's interesting that this week's announcement centres not on Vista but its predecessor.
Asus didn't say when it will begin offering Eees with XP pre-installed, or how much extra that version of the computer will cost. This week it also took the wraps off the second-generation Eee, a larger model with an 8.9in, 1024 x 600 display, 1-2GB of memory and 8-12GB of solid-state storage.
Editors' Blog: Eee PC: better with Windows?
COMMENTS
@ Windows of 4gig nay-sayers
I've had one since release (only complaint is that its on its third keyboard, though they are only a tenner and quick to replace). I think running with Xandros on the 4Gb is the way to go for most users, the bundled interface 'feels' like a PDA or phone, is simple and probably not what most people would expect from a linux desktop - in a good way I mean.
Despite this, I currently have XP Home + Star Office etc running OK (with compressed 4Gb drive) and SD card for storage. Windows drivers are all bundled on DVD including a nice util to provide 800x600 virtual screen - its simple to install and works well for everyday apps, internet etc.
Problem with XP Home is you can't adjust or remove the pagefile.sys unless you add physical RAM - and in any case since Windows <=XP can't run without virtual memory even if you think you've switched it off by ditching pagefile you'll find a new 20-40mb paging file is created automatically in system32 however much physical RAM you have.
I'll have an Eee please Bob
When I went in, PC World only had the 2Gb memory versions, not the 4Gb.
@ Windows of 4gig nay-sayers
I've had an eee for 3 months now that I use on a daily basis althoug it's not my main laptop (4gig with an 8 gig SDHC card & 2 gig RAM). I have turned off the page file and setup a ramdrive, pointed my browser caches to it and all runs perfectly. I cut down my XP build to remove the crap I didn't need and have XP and Office 2007 installed in 1.5gig. That has left plenty of room for any other apps and my data is stored on the 8 Gig SDHC card.
Before I installed the cut down version of XP I still managed an install with Office that came in at 2.5gig.
At the end of the day, you pay your money and you choose your OS based upon what you require.
It works for me.
Re: Where to get your eee
Still waiting for my daughter's Eee to arrive. On order for a month now.
Went straight to the PC World web site after reading your post - they have 2G versions (which are obviously out of fashion already) but no 4Gs.
Where are you seeing "piles of them"???
@ Andy Worth
Quite. I've got full XP Pro on a 6GB (5.5GB formatted) partition, with a reasonable page file, OpenOffice, XAMPP server stack, several hefty websites and a few other bits and bobs. Still 2.5GB to spare. 4GB would be a tighter squeeze, but still perfectly doable.
