SU on Notebook
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Asus EEE is a joke, pretty much a gadget IMHO.
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the Asus EeePC uses a Linux based OS, i.e. no go for SU.
I would avoid a video card w/ shared memory (which are fine for and dedicated to office and internet usage) as well as ATI based solutions under Windows (besides maybe the FireGL stuff).
I would recommend a dedicated and nVidia GPU based video subsystem, preferred the Quadro FX CAD series, w/ 512 megs own RAM.
use Windows XP Pro SP2 instead of Vista, currently the OGL support of recent video drivers is more stable than the available Vista drives... will probably change w/ SP1 of Vista and future releases of video drivers.
check the Dell Precision series w/ Quadro FX GPUs integrated.. you also might want to select and buy as commercial user resp. company because of the opportunity to 'downgrade' from Vista to XP...
btw, because of missing multi threading of recent SU builds a faster dual core CPU is better than a slower quad core.. may obviously change in the future.
hth,
Norbert
(formerly known as 'ignorant' sketchup-forum.com admin scnr) -
Just for the record, the eee will run Sketchup.
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remus
I just ammended my post on that, it ships with xp or linux, not vista
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@unknownuser said:
Asus EEE is a joke, pretty much a gadget IMHO.
@unknownuser said:
the Asus EeePC uses a Linux based OS, i.e. no go for SU
Asus EEE ships with either a linux distro or windows Xp, but it is probably too small to consider for SU.
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as I undestood, the default OS Asus ships is Xandros Linux only, at least in Germany.
regardless of this, the hardware specs seem to be not very promising for using an OGL based 3D app: Intel Celeron M 900MHz CPU, 512MB/1024 RAM, Intel GMA 900 GPU (shared), 800×480 LCD
running/launching is one thing, working with real life models another one.
Norbert
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IMO the Eee is only good for ebook reading, that is all I'd do with it anyway because of the small screen and weak specs.
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Fair point Julian. I think anybody would soon outgrow an eee, I wouldn't use one, but it might be good just for portability.
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youd be rather pressed for space with vista on an eee, theyre hard drive is only 4/8GB and a raw version of vista is about 8, so it must run a pretty cut down version.
edit: see jons posts.
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I just ordered the XP-compatible Eee PC 8G (wheeeeeee!)...I'm looking forward to its portability, and also to the possibility of doing some unusual modifications to it (there are web pages after pages devoted to this topic), hopefully involving a great deal of ugly duct-taping and exposed circuit boards. It's the antimatter universe's equivalent to the Mac Air niceties.
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You are keeping it real Lewis! Let me know how you get on hacking the eee. I have a theory that I could mod it to feature bluetooth and then use it for measured surveys using a leica laser distometer (bluetooth enabled) and Powercad Sitemaster. However, freedom lover that I am, if there is a way to do this with open source apps on a linux o.s. that has to be a more efficient use of the eee.
Good luck with the gaffer tape, maybe try a folded out paper clip too.
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@unknownuser said:
You are keeping it real Lewis! Let me know how you get on hacking the eee. I have a theory that I could mod it to feature bluetooth and then use it for measured surveys using a leica laser distometer (bluetooth enabled) and Powercad Sitemaster. However, freedom lover that I am, if there is a way to do this with open source apps on a linux o.s. that has to be a more efficient use of the eee.
Good luck with the gaffer tape, maybe try a folded out paper clip too.
I'm with you there...the only reason I'll put XP on this thing is to run SU. But first I'm going to ditch that silly Xandros Linux distro for the Xubuntu derivative that the Eee fanboys have put together. Maybe with WINE and 'buntu, I won't even need to use my extra XP license on this...I've found references to people using QCAD and Blender on the Eee (and even Compiz/Beryl for the desktop!), so it might actually work. It will be fun to try.
I did see...and I've lost the site now...a description of an "ultimate" Eee hack where the owner managed to get Bluetooth working on the little thing with a bit of creative soldering and a Dremel tool. I'll send the link to you if I find it again.
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@lewiswadsworth said:
I just ordered the XP-compatible Eee PC 8G (wheeeeeee!)...
the new Eee PC 900 is on the way, should be available roughly summer 08:
• 8.9" Display w/ 1024×600pix (instead of 7.1" w/ 800x480pix)
• max. memory up to 12GB w/ os & apps ~ 3GB (instead of max. 8GB)
• working memory 1GB (instead of 512MB)
• ~ 399.- U$ (instead of U$ 299.-)maybe worth to wait, especially for the bigger display.
Norbert
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@sketch3d.de said:
@lewiswadsworth said:
I just ordered the XP-compatible Eee PC 8G (wheeeeeee!)...
the new Eee PC 900 is on the way, should be available roughly summer 08:
• 8.9" Display w/ 1024×600pix (instead of 7.1" w/ 800x480pix)
• max. memory up to 12GB w/ os & apps ~ 3GB (instead of max. 8GB)
• working memory 1GB (instead of 512MB)
• ~ 399.- U$ (instead of U$ 299.-)maybe worth to wait, especially for the bigger display.
Norbert
Best price for the highest-end 8G (barring returned items) is actually USD499, according to Google, and that doesn't include any accessories other than a soft case. And I did know about the 8.9" display on the yet-to-be released 900 (which will probably miss that release date, judging by Asus' record of logistics problems and the LG battery factory fire)...and there will always be something better, around the corner, in three months, next year, next generation, future release, down the road...
But I will have my 8G tomorrow, and I've already acquired the bits and pieces and bytes I'll need to make a mess of it! I've decided that, as opposed to duct/Duck tape (a.k.a., gaffer tape), I might use that heavy gummed aluminum foil used for sealing HVAC units...
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So I'll rip the LED out of my old iBook and duck tape it to the cover...
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@lewiswadsworth said:
But I will have my 8G tomorrow...
sure, Asus will probably miss the targeted release date again but a vertical resolution of 480pix
seems to render the device useless at least in connection with Windoze or surfing the web.anywayz,
Norbert -
Got my eee...wheeeeeeeeeeeeee. I'm posting from it now...tomorrow, the tampering begins!
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Search on youtube for the touch screen mod by "dae_ja_voo".
+++ EDIT +++
nevermind, I found it for you, a quick how-to can be found here.
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@unknownuser said:
Search on youtube for the touch screen mod by "dae_ja_voo".
Thanks, Julian.
That sort of thing is why I wanted one of these little beasts...I think I may be making some modifications to it's internal storage system first, though. I was looking at vacuum-forming a new shell with enough room to fit a small harddrive into it. I bought the 120GB drive on sale with the eee, so I can easily test out the functionality.
Or I can just Dremel a hole in the existing shell and duck-tape the drive to some part of it where the ventilation isn't too bad. That's more my style! I always like my hardware to look like something I(or Han Solo) might find tossed in a corner of the Millennium Falcon with some old rags.
Actually, first thing is to tweak up the operating system(s) and get a CAD program and SketchUp going...
Oh damn, I have to do some work today, too...I wonder if anyone will give me a grant to tamper with an eee all day long?
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By the way on the Eee 8G I can run SU 6 Pro with Fast Feedback (despite a warning from SketchUp that it might not work) and Hardware Acceleration, with only slightly worse performance than I get on my aging Dell 5150 notebook (which also has a gig of RAM and a 128 MB Nvidia card). In other words, a 13 MB skp file will bog the Eee down a bit, but not unreasonably so.
I've set it up so that I've got Firefox, SU6, Rhino 4 (for CAD and modeling, if SU ever fails...Rhino has a much lower graphics card requirement), Abiword (a light Open Source word processor), Blender 2.45, and Photoshop 7 on XP SP 2. If I need a spreadsheet or presentation software Google Docs will do (I'm becoming more impressed with that all the time, anyway), and I use a webmail client for email. With Windows virtual mememory requirements, all this is consuming about 3 GB of the 8 GB SSD harddrive, but I've been supplementing it with a 4G SDHC card in the card slot and I've just ordered a new 8GB card to double that (and I could recover some space on the internal disk if I was willing to ditch Rhino's Explicit History plugin, which needs .NET 2.0).
The only program that is giving me any problems on the Eee, incidentally, is Acrobat Reader, which is such a worthless beast that I'd love to ditch it and probably will if I can find a lighter pdf reader.
The Eee, incidentally, doesn't have a CD/DVD drive, of course, but it only took about forty dollars to get a cheap Pioneer drive and an USB 2.0 case (absurdly twice as big as the Eee) that the computer recognized instantly. Actually, it recognized everything instantly.
It's just great as something I can carry around and do a little work with...and I haven't even started to overclock or otherwise tamper significantly, besides making some space-saving changes to XP. Incidentally, if I didn't need SU or Rhino and could get by with just QCAD, the Ubuntu-derivative ("eeeXubuntu") available for this thing was amazingly elegant (I tried it out for an afternoon before I installed XP).
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