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=== Speed up boot process ===
 * Install dash and make /bin/sh point to dash by 'dpkg-reconfiguring dash'
 * Remove nfs-common, cause it starts portmap daemon.
 * Remove *hwclock* from /etc/rcS.d/, cause it read /dev/rtc timeout can take 4~6secs.

?TableOfContents

Extending flash memory life

It is a commonly accepted view that SSD devices can only be written a limited number of times before they die, and while that may have been a concern for earlier generations of devices where that limit was relatively low, modern SSDs, such as the one in the Eee increase that number sufficiently so that they will last many years before they die, outlasting any HDD. Before you spend herculean efforts to extend your Eee's flash lifespan, consider this article: http://wiki.eeeuser.com/ssd_write_limit. Nevertheless, many tips are easy to do and at the very least are harmless, or have other benefits (such as less time spent doing IO making your system more responsive,) so here are a few.

  • Open /etc/sysctl.conf and set vm.dirty_writeback_centisecs = 1500. This will prolong the life of your SSD by writing to the disk every 15 seconds instead of 5.
  • Probably many of the tips useful for [http://www.cyrius.com/debian/nslu2/linux-on-flash.html Linksys on NSLU2] can be applied to the EeePC

  • Mount a tmpfs over /tmp to never write its contents to SSD: echo "tmpfs /tmp tmpfs defaults 0 0" >>/etc/fstab. You can probably do that for other directories like /var/tmp, /var/lock, etc.

  • Mount your disk-backed filesystems with the '[http://lwn.net/Articles/244829/ relatime]' option

Caveat: relatime seems not yet to work in lenny (and therefore the installer). Please someone verify it works in sid

Text mode

  • You may want to add vga=785 to your kernel boot line to get more space for your screen in text mode. This is 600x480 (16 bit), there is no vga code for 800x480.

Desktop environment

If you use a Gnome desktop on your Eee, here are some ways to make better use of the limited screen height:

  • Enable the autohide property on the Gnome panels at the top and bottom of the desktop, so they get out of the way unless you mouse over them. To do this, right click on a blank part of the panel, then choose Properties, and go to the General tab. Unfortunately, Gnome's idea of "hidden" may not match yours (or the dictionary's); it still leaves a bar several pixels wide. You can reduce that to 1 pixel (but not to zero) by using gconf-editor to change /apps/panel/toplevels/panel0/auto_hide_size (you have to do this for panel0, panel1,...).
  • In many applications, like gnome-terminal and firefox (iceweasel), you can use the F11 key to toggle a fullscreen mode that provides even more area than simply maximizing the window.
  • In metacity you can set up the F11 key to toggle fullscreen mode for all applications by selecting System > Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts. Find the "Window Management" section, select the "Toggle fullscreen mode" item (which is disabled by default), and type F11 to set it.

  • You can change workspaces without exiting fullscreen mode by using Control-Alt-Left_arrow and Control-Alt-Right_arrow.
  • You can move your application under Xfce, KDE and Gnome with alt+left_mouse ( press alt before left_mouse ) and move your mouse. Very useful for applications bigger than the screen, like Gnome Evolution (Mail).
  • With Alt+F7 you switch to "move screen" after pressing those two keys you can use the keyboard arrows to move the window around.

Firefox:

  • Use the F11 key to toggle a fullscreen mode that provides even more area than simply maximizing the window.
  • Install the [https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/firefox/addon/4550 ?CompactMenu2] extension to gain few pixels taken by the menu

  • You can also stop using tabs and use Alt+Tab to switch from a window to an other. Use the [http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/keyconfig ?KeyConfig] extension to bind Ctrl+T to "New window".

  • Activate the “Use Small Icons” checkbox in the “Customize Toolbar” panel

Opera:

  • Use F11 to get into full-screen (this is the presentation mode, you'll not have any bars unlike as in FF).
  • Use the "Fit to width" feature on huge pages.

KDE/Kwin:

  • Each window can be made fullscreen with a right click on the window decoration. You can also use keyboard shortcuts to make a window fullscreen in the control center > “Regional & Accessibility” > “Keyboard Shortcuts” > “Make Window Fullscreen” or “Hide Window Border”.

  • Put the panel on the left or right side instead of bottom/top, as you have more room in width than in height. Also choose “Tiny” for the panel size, and take a look at the auto/manual Hiding functionalities.

[http://packages.debian.org/openbox ?OpenBox]:

Accessing the Asus Restore Image

Here is a way to access the files that were on the original Xandros system before you installed Debian on your Eee PC. You need the Asus Support DVD that came with the machine, and a Linux machine with a DVD reader and about 2.5G of free disk space (so you probably don't want to do this on your Eee).

Insert the Support DVD and extract the disk image of the Xandros system:

sudo mount /dev/dvd /media/dvd
zcat /media/dvd/P701L.gz > ~/restore.img
sudo eject /media/dvd

Now you can mount the Xandros image on your desktop whenever you want by doing:

sudo mount -t ext2 ~/restore.img /mnt/img -o ro,loop,offset=32256

(The offset of 63*512 = 32256 skips over the partition table in the disk image.) The original filesystem is now mounted, read-only, under /mnt/img/. When you're finished accessing it, don't forget to do

sudo umount /mnt/img

Make a complete disk image

The Debian Installer provided in the DebianEeePC/Howto/Install can be used to make a disk image and to send it over the network. This trick can sometimes provide a way to restore the (nearly) original Asus EeePC system before playing with new Debian installation as in some countries, you do not have the Asus Restore Image shipped with the laptop.

Backup

This method uses dd and nc provided by the Debian Installer and another computer located on your local network:

  • First, boot the debian installer on your USB disk
  • Then be sure to activate network and configure it, same thing for the disk (Do not partition it)
  • Open a console shell (Alt+F2 or from the Debian Installer menu)
  • On the backup computer:
    • get its IP adress (ifconfig)
    • start a listening nc session on port 9000:

 nc -l -p 9000 | gzip -1 -c > ./eeepc.img.gz
  • On the EeePC shell:

dd if=/dev/sda | nc -w 5 computer_ip_adress 9000
  • Wait some minutes (about 35)... and you get a eeepc.img.gz with about 900Mb

Extract some files from the image

  • extract the compressed disk image:
    gunzip eeepc.img.gz => got & 4Gb eeepc.img
  • As root (or sudo), setup a loopback device:
    losetup -f eeepc.img 
  • view of the partitions:
     fdisk -ul /dev/loop0 
  • Disque /dev/loop0: 4001 Mo, 4001292288 octets
    255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 486 cylinders, total 7815024 secteurs
    Units = secteurs of 1 * 512 = 512 bytes
    Disk identifier: 0x3c173c16
    Périphérique Amorce    Début         Fin      Blocs    Id  Système
    /dev/loop0p1              63     4819499     2409718+  83  Linux
    /dev/loop0p2         4819500     7775459     1477980   83  Linux
    /dev/loop0p3         7775460     7791524        8032+   c  W95 FAT32 (LBA)
    /dev/loop0p4         7791525     7807589        8032+  ef  EFI (FAT-12/16/32)
  • 1 sector = 512 bytes, you want to mount partition 1 which starts at sector 63 => 63 sectors * 512 bytes = 32,256 bytes

  • Partition 1 starts at 32256 bytes.
  • Use the same command from the last tips:
    sudo mount eeepc.img /mnt/img -o ro,loop,offset=32256
  • if you want partition 2 use 4819500*512 = 2467584000 bytes offset:
    sudo mount eeepc.img /mnt/img -o ro,loop,offset=2467584000

Note: The first partition is the restoration partition and is ext2 filesystem, the second partition is your "active" partition and is ext3 filesystem. So if you want to find some of your files, try to search them under the second partition...

Restoration

Here is a restoration procedure with the debian installer:

  • On the Asus EeePC, launch the debian installer, config network (get the IP adress) and detect disks then get a shell.
  • launch the restoration command:
    nc -l -p 9000 | dd of=/dev/sda
  • Then on the computer with the image file:
    zcat ./eeepc.img.gz | nc <eeepc_ip_adress> 9000
  • Wait some minutes...
  • Reboot your computer !

Remove unused locales

This would save several tenths of megabytes. Install the localepurge package and select the locales you use. Then run localepurge as root. localepurge will also run automatically after each apt run, cleaning unused localization data.

Clean up obsolete downloaded package file

When package installation has installed the packages, the package files are not needed any more. Removing them can re-gain quite a lot of hd space.

  • sudo apt-get clean

You can do the same from aptitudes menu.

Software Control the fan speed

EeePC's hardware fan control is highly energy inefficient. Fan is turned on on need and usually never turned off (even if temperature reaches a normal value).

Theres a highly experimental tool available that monitors temperature and adjusts fan speed according to it.

Its written in Perl by ?RaimoRadczewski and called eeepc-fancontrol. You can get it at http://code.google.com/p/eeepc-fancontrol/

additional you must install the eee.ko module (http://code.google.com/p/eeepc-linux/)

You can adjust values by editing the daemon with your fav. text editor

""Attention"" Theres no warranty for this. It works quite good, but remember on REAL heavy load the daemon might not be executed.

Speed up boot process

  • Install dash and make /bin/sh point to dash by 'dpkg-reconfiguring dash'
  • Remove nfs-common, cause it starts portmap daemon.
  • Remove *hwclock* from /etc/rcS.d/, cause it read /dev/rtc timeout can take 4~6secs.