Fun with an Asus Eee PC 900 20G

I received my Asus Eee 900 20G on Wednesday -- the DHL guy made a second attempt to deliver so I didn't have to wait another day. I took a mental health day to play with my new toy. I got it on my home wireless network. With two added lines to the configuration file, I got the PPTP VPN network connection to work with our department's Windows Server 2003 RRAS server. After uninstalling the existing rdesktop and downloading the latest Debian version of rdesktop, I was able to connect to my XP workstation as well as our Windows Server 2003 servers.

On the downside, I was not able to get our enterprise's Cisco VPN client to work. I can't use vpnc because our Cisco VPN server uses a non-default port number. Plus I don't know what the secret passphrase is.

This weekend I will work on switching from Easy Mode to Advanced Mode. Yes, Easy Mode is cute but can't be modified. And maybe I need to be in Advanced Mode to get the Cisco VPN client to work. I am not a Linux expert but I am a Windows expert. Easy Mode is too simplistic. I need the challenge of Advanced mode if I am going to expand my Linux experience.

I do plan on keeping Xandros Linux. Installing Windows XP will be a last resort. I know others have installed other flavors of Linux, but since I'm a Linux newbie, I have no preference.