ASUS launches "Eee Download" service, forgets the "installation" part

While ASUS's new, quietly-launched Eee Download service would seem to be a welcome addition for most Eee PC users, it looks to have caused nothing but confusion in the few days it's been live. The main problem is that all of the files on the site are in the so-called Click 'N Run (or CNR) format, which is a quick and easy way to install Linux apps -- when the Linux distro supports CNR, that is. Unfortunately for ASUS (and Eee PC users), the Eee PC's Xandros distribution does not. As some on the EeeUser forums point out, however, Xandros now actually owns Linspire (the company behind CNR), so it would seem to be entirely possible that CNR support could be coming in a future version of Xandros, but that still doesn't explain ASUS putting the cart before the horse like this.

[Via Eee PC News, EeeUser]

[MleB Posted Aug 26th 2008 7:33AM]

I bought an Eee 4G back in November primarily because I was taken with the true portability of the thing and because it allowed me an inexpensive opportunity to try out a computer where both hardware and Linux OS were built for each other - thereby missing out the dubious pleasure and geekfest of double-booting OSs and praying it all worked and compiling for what doesn't.

On the whole, the experiment has been successful - as long as I have studiously avoided all of ASUS' patches, updates and upgrades via Synaptic or apt-get. These appear to cause more trouble than they resolve, if they install as advertised at all. Any successful installations of useful software I have achieved I have downloaded from 3rd Party sites and manually (right-click > Install Debian) added to my Eee.
This means of installation has proven to be as straightforward and easy as with any Win or MacOS machine, but the programs one can do this with on the Eee remain thin on the ground.

But ASUS's support for its LinuxOS products remains an embarrassment of indifference.

Meanwhile, the concept of stripping out the current OS and installing something more user/software friendly rather defeats the purpose for me and regains Linux's reputation as only for geeks and computer hobbyists and simply not-ready-for-primetime.

[(Unverified) Posted Oct 28th 2008 9:22AM]

Hello people,

first of all,m I do not care what OS I´m running.
However, I am used to a lot of Win-Apps, so I´ll stick to them until Linux+Wine is faster and more stable than WinXP. Anyway,

IS THERE A WAY FOR DUAL-BOOT?
I´d love the idea to simply select what OS to boot.
Ideas?

Thanks