XP'd EEE

Well I bit the bullet and installed XP on my EEE. It wasn't that I didn't like the Xandros Linux install that was on it - as I've previously described it was a hugely functional device out of the box, but trying to do anything different such as loading new software, and you had to get seriously under the bonnet. And I'm just past that. I just want things to work (Murray - are you listening!)

So, armed with a portable CD, my old copy of XP, a download of nLite a massive amount of trepidation and a superb step by step guide by Jason Olmstead, I settled down for a few hours tinkering.

nLite allows you to take a standard Windows XP install, and strip out virtually any element from within it. Seriously dangerous stuff if you don't know what you're doing. Luckliy Jason does, and his step by step guide shows every little thing he left in or took out - I deviated a couple of times (I wanted Blutetooth - he didn't) for example, it worked first time, and I've ended up with a Win XP install on my 4GB EEE that was only about 500mb rather than the nearer 2.5GB you get with a default install. That's absoultey stunning, and so far (touch a large bit of wood), everything lookes tickty boo. I've got myself connected to the Internet, installed AVG anti-virus, the default XP firewall, a full install of Open Office and I've still got 2.2GB free.

The joy is that XP is still familiar to me and everything just works the way I want it to. No mucking about in respositories or messing with the CLI. Take the inbuilt camera for instance. In the default Linux setup, you could fire up the camera and take a snapshot of your mug. But it didnt work with Pidgin, the deafult messenger install. In XP, Camera is visible as a device in "My Computer, fire it up and off we go. Fire up messenger, link the camera, and Robert's your Uncle as they say. Brilliant. I'm absolutely chuffed to bits.