23 Jul 2013

Asus EeePC 4G Surf revival

Update: Consider running the x86 port of Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) on your Asus EeePC 4G Surf. Download the android-x86-4.0-RC2-eeepc.iso here and follow the instructions for installation.You won't believe how slick it will make your old EeePC!

I recently dug out my old EeePC from the back of my closet and tweaked it to better than new. The improvement is mostly thanks to a fresh installation of Zorin-OS 7 lite which I think is a totally awesome Linux distro for this netbook. It's a shame that Asus didn't use something more like Zorin-OS with the initial 2007 release of the EeePC, but it's only been around since 2009. I never imagined I could be running Chrome 28 on my EeePC and I easily re-installed Frozen Bubble and Extreme Tux Racer from the Ubuntu repositories - It's so much easier to install software  than it was using Xandros and everything is up to date!


During my investigations into upgrading the OS, I also came across suggestions that the EeePC uses standard laptop RAM (DDR2), this was a nice find as I had a spare 1GB DDR2 laptop module lying around. It was no mean feat to get to the RAM slot as the white version of the EeePC doesn't have a door underneath (apparently the black one does). I'm not going to document the full process (you can watch a video here), but I can confirm that if you carefully dismantle a white 4G Surf, you will find a standard laptop RAM slot on the back side of the motherboard. It was worth the effort as my 1GB module is working great and more RAM is always better!

I deleted all the factory drive partitions during installation (from a USB stick) and assigned the full internal 4GB drive to Zorin-OS. In the spirit of putting redundant hardware to work I slapped in an old 1GB SD card as well and set this up as the swap partition. I've got a full 1.3GB of free space on my 4G now which I didn't even dream of previously and while the 4G Surf remains well past its use by date I think I have actually made mine fairly useful again.