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It’s been a little over six months since the ASUS Eee PC captured the imagination of techies all across the globe. The low price point, ultra-portability, and customizability have made it a consumer favorite since it’s arrival. With a rapidly expanding community begging for more (and competition looming) ASUS hasn’t wasted any time announcing the release of the Eee PC 900. And although the 900 model will undoubtedly be popular with consumers, it’s the Eee PC 701 that retails for $399 that I reviewed recently that is still the best ultra-portable device on the market today.

Despite the low price and portability, many Windows-savvy user like myself are wary about using Linux for the first time. I ultimately decided to take the plunge (mostly out of curiosity) but now find myself hooked on the nuances of Linux and have even installed Ubuntu on my home PC. After tweaking with my Eee for hours on end, I have finally come to a set up that enables me to do almost 100% of the work I do on my Windows dual-core laptop.

For anyone looking to get set up quick and rapidly without a bunch of headaches, here’s what I did (with the help of the very awesome EeeUser tutorials):

1. Enable Advanced Desktop Mode.   The Eee comes with a special “easy mode” installed.  Easy mode is great if you just want to boot up and check the web and use the software that the Eee PC comes with, but not much more.  Advanced Desktop Mode puts you in a traditional Windows-like environment with a desktop and a start menu and the ability to customize your computer a bit.
2. Change the taskbar clock format.  Unless of course you like a 24 hour clock.
3. Create more screen space in Firefox.  Since web browsing is likely one of the main things you’ll be doing on the EeePC, this is paramount.  Also make sure to get rid of the Status Bar on the bottom by unchecking view -> status bar.
   
4. Add other software repositories.   The EeePC comes with some great software - Skype, Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, etc - but if you want to experience all of the other great Linux software out there the easiest way to do this is to add the list of four Xandros software repositories from that tutorial.  Doing so will allow you to install almost any available Linux software at the click of a button in the Synaptic Package Manager.  In particular, I wanted to install Bluefish for web development and GIMP for image editing.  Both were easy installs once I added these repositories.

Doing those four steps will take less than an hour but will dramatically increase the potential that your Eee PC has to offer (and also familiarize you a bit with Linux).  If this quick guide alone doesn’t satisfy you, the Wiki over on EeeUser has step by step instructions for almost any other task you might want to attempt.