====== Mandriva 2008 on the Eee PC : Mandreeeva? ======

//This How-to is , so far, for an install of Mandriva 2008 on an external usb hard drive using the Asus Eee P701.  It is a very basic install I have not tried everything but the wi-fi and the sound work as well as all the 3D Desktop features (Metisse, Compiz-Fusion) including the transparencies. The webcam also work, tested with Kopete. WiFi fn Key is working.
//

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**Hardware required :**

  * Eee asus P701
  * USB external CD reader
  * USB external hard drive with a partition of at least 3 GB free for root.
  * Mandriva 2008 One CD (also tested with cooker but not as stable).
  * A lot of patience...

**0-Some work before you start if you are not a Mandriva user:**

http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/installmdv2008.0.html


**1**- a Boot the Eee on the hard-drive with the CD Rom Mandriva 2008 inside making sure that the WiFi (blue light) is on.

**1**- b If you don't have an external CDROM or DVD player, you can install Mandriva on your external disk by booting the CD on another PC. Before make sure you physically unplug any Hard drive in this PC (desactivation of the BIOS is not enought).The PC will be  fooled and think the only drive is the USB drive and will assign it sda label. then when the install is finished, make sure the first boot occurs on the Hard drive plugged in the EeePC.

**2-**Let the normal boot occur with no other option. If you get a kernel panic type noapic nolapic as an option.

**3-**Answer the usual question of language and location, choosing no 3D desktop for the first boot will speed-up the process.

**4-**Once KDE is running click on the install Icon and be patient - took 35 mins on a very old external CD Rom reader. At this stage you will have to configure your partitions, I chose 10GB for root and 2GB of swap. 

**5-** When probed for the boot order and where to install it, make sure you choose your external hard-drive or this will alter you stock distro.

__**REBOOT**__ 

**6**-When rebooting, press the escape key and choose your usb drive to boot.

**7**-You need to be comfortable to work so I advise to reduce the taskbar to tiny, reduce the icons to 24 dpi and enable metisse in order to have more space.

**8**-Enable the WiFi: 
We need here to use a windows driver (sorry) and ndiswrapper to make it useable in linux.

Follow religiously the instructions there but make sure you use the file blacklist.mdv where a blacklist file is mentioned.

http://wiki.eeeuser.com/howto:configurendiswrapper?s=wifi%20driver

Make sure all three files present in the Asus's wifi folder are present (ar5211.sys   net5211.cat  net5211.inf), the .inf on its own is useless!

it works perfectly first time,if not you have missed an important detail!

Once online, I suggest you pay a visit to easy urpmi and update your system. I did a cleanup, removing all the nvidia stuff and all the languages I don't need. I also installed xfce to see if there was any speed gain. I didn't notice any...

**9**-Enable the sound :

Edit /etc/modprobe.conf and add the line “options snd-hda-intel model=3stack-dig” to get sound working working. At this stage I had to reboot in order to have the sound working, it might not be necessary, please correct if it is the case.

**10**- Configure the system to your preferences


In order to install codecs and other necessities to play videos and music properly I suggest to go to:

http://www.mandrake.tips.4.free.fr/configuration2008.0.html

Lots of advice there with screen shots etc... I also advise a few add-ons for Firefox :
CrossFTP, FullerScreen, Download Statusbar. That will save you some space, along with a compact theme if you still feel a bit tight.

{{fusion-compiz.jpg|}}
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Points still not checked :
Ethernet
Sleep mode
WiFi fn Key
etc...