Vista gets wrangled onto the Eee PC

It already seems pretty clear that there are few OSes that won't at least be attempted to be installed on the Eee PC, and it now looks like you can chalk up another of the big ones in successful column, as one fearless user has managed to squish Vista onto the diminutive laptop. To accomplish that feat, Paul O'Brien used the vLite tool to cut out as much bloat as possible before putting the custom disk image onto a USB stick, after which he then installed the OS on the Eee PC and, perhaps most notably, moved the Side by Side (or SxS) directory onto an 8GB SD card, freeing up some much needed space on the laptop itself. If for some reason you want to try that yourself, you can find complete instructions by hitting up the read link below, or you can live vicariously through the video after the break.

[Via Gadget Lab]

[Sam @ Dec 18th 2008 6:31PM]

my eeepc runs vista smoothly even with aero effects, and I am happy about it!

[z0phi3l @ Dec 14th 2007 1:17PM]

What a waste of time

[Blake @ Dec 14th 2007 2:44PM]

What? Your comment? Thought so.

[DWells55 @ Dec 14th 2007 1:19PM]

I don't see the point in spending this much time and effort into loading a resource-heavy operating system onto a platform which doesn't have strong specs to begin with. There aren't any truly practical benefits given the Eee PC's purpose, size, and specs.

[insertAlias @ Dec 14th 2007 1:26PM]

At the beginning he tells you exactly why he did it: "To see if i could."
It doesn't have to have a real benefit, he's just proving the point that it can be done.

[linumax @ Dec 14th 2007 1:54PM]

Sometimes people do things as a hobby, and hobbies are not intended to help with the progress of humanity.

[DWells55 @ Dec 14th 2007 2:02PM]

Understood, but just because you can do something impractical doesn't mean it's worth the time to do it.

[Tom @ Dec 14th 2007 2:09PM]

I don't think it's worth the time to play football in my spare moments of life, but damned if I'm going to tell somebody else their hobby isn't worth THEIR time. The guy has a hobby. This is what he wants to do with his time.

[Jon @ Dec 14th 2007 2:56PM]

For a person who thinks this is a waste of time you sure spend a lot of time replying to a thread about it.

[Matt @ Dec 14th 2007 3:46PM]

I think he needs a hobby.

[dejal @ Dec 14th 2007 4:00PM]

My hobby is healing lepers when I'm done with my 9-5 job. What's yours?

[LimboMan @ Dec 15th 2007 12:25PM]

It'd be under the same category of "how many portable devices can we cram linux into or how many devices can we see a shot of Doom on?" It's a challenge, a curiosity, a problem-solving exercise. Certainly the process by which one undergoes to solve such problems result in gained knowledge that may very possibly be applied to solving problems in other areas.

[Suhag Patel @ Dec 15th 2007 11:23PM]

Is he wasting your time? No? Then why are you complaining?

[Jason @ Dec 14th 2007 1:27PM]

I think the expression "Shoving 10lbs of shit into a 2lb box" is appropriate here.

[Andrew Baker (Dotelpenguin) @ Dec 14th 2007 1:40PM]

10lbs? 2lb box? I was thinking 10tons into a 2lb box

[UKNigel @ Dec 14th 2007 2:08PM]

I was thinking the weight of the box is irrelevant.

[Low @ Dec 14th 2007 4:13PM]

"I was thinking the weight of the box is irrelevant."

QFT

[Andrew @ Dec 14th 2007 6:49PM]

There IS NO box.

[Danny @ Dec 15th 2007 7:53AM]

The box is a lie.

[JBo @ Dec 14th 2007 1:32PM]

I guess I'm not surprised that it can be done. That's actually a testament to Windows. But I do agree with the "what's the point?" folks. Vista is clearly overkill for what the Eee PC is intended for, and probably doesn't work very well on it.

[Andir3.0 @ Dec 14th 2007 3:08PM]

Reading email, chatting, playing games, and word processing? So what is Vista good for?

[Joshua Walters @ Dec 14th 2007 1:41PM]

Old news. Not just today, but in general. They had Vista on the Eee about the same time they managed OSX.

When I get an Eee later next year, Ill be keeping it linux based. Maybe Ubuntu. I cant run games on it anyways, and thats the only reason I keep Windows.

[gyffes @ Dec 14th 2007 2:10PM]

Actually, I see it as a testament to the eeepc.

It's an astonishingly versatile machine. The best part is, the restore process is astonishingly simple, so it practically begs to be experimented with. I put xubuntu on, couldn't easily get wired ethernet to work, got cranky and restored to base xandros.. the restore process took only a few minutes.

[greg @ Dec 14th 2007 2:08PM]

I'm actually kind of impressed. I thought vista would have slowed it down to a crawl. But, firefox loaded in a decent amount of time...

[rv @ Dec 14th 2007 5:09PM]

Are you serious? That took 4x more than my 2 ghz 512 pc (xp). Painful.

[Sensae @ Dec 14th 2007 8:59PM]

"That took four times more than my system with four times the clock speed. What's wrong with it?"

[Charlie Calhoun @ Dec 14th 2007 2:20PM]

'asoos' is a good company I see....

sorry, I had to.

[skhawaja @ Dec 14th 2007 3:28PM]

wrangled is definitely the operative :]

is there a side by side view of a Vista EEEPC and a NORMAL EEEPC going through some web surfing etc?

Those 3d desktop demos shown earlier are a testament to both open source and asus, nice going.

[NiGHTS @ Dec 14th 2007 3:58PM]

Next thing you know they will be trying to see if Crysis will run on it.

[Michael LaFramboise @ Dec 14th 2007 4:13PM]

Not unless it runs Doom

[matt @ Dec 14th 2007 4:40PM]

This may be summed up in the following, credited to aq from http://lugradio.org .

Why do dog lick their own balls? Because they can!

The fact that vista(Home premium) costs more than the eee(In the UK) should be enough to put people off.

I Like mine with ubuntu, and am typing this post with it.

[snurble @ Dec 14th 2007 6:13PM]

Yeah, but licking your own balls is a lot more fun than running Vista at 900MHz.

[Jon Doe @ Dec 14th 2007 7:13PM]

I think I speak for a lot of people, and even many geeks when I say...ewww.

What is that rating being listed? Looks like a 0.something. :-P

Vista can hardly run decently on a 1.4Ghz processor with, 2GB of RAM and a solid GPU....this thing.....ewww. There is absolutely NO reason to load Vista on there when XP would do a much better job on every front. Other then being a geek challenge this is pointless.

[RC @ Dec 14th 2007 10:10PM]

You're not correct about that.

[james doe lol @ Dec 15th 2007 1:25AM]

i think jon doe uses the phrase ewww to much... maybe hes gay... as for vista its a great OS... on my X6800 system with 4GB of ram and a 2900XT... but i agree with it being alittle to much for the eee... but i would do it just to try it out if i had a eee... i think i would try osx too...

[jmanau @ Dec 15th 2007 12:18PM]

So....if Vista on the eee is 10 lbs of shit in a 2 lb box.....would xp pro be only 3 lbs of shit in the 2 lb box?

Is it Worth it?

[Nish Vamadevan @ Dec 18th 2007 7:10AM]

I don't see the point of running Vista on Eee PC! Waste of time and effort.

[Tim @ Jan 9th 2008 12:00PM]

Awsome. Im so hyper for when I get the v2 in the uk

*barrel rolls*