Anyone here remember the first time the Eee PC came out? Yeah, it was a glorious time. It was the birth of the netbook, and we all had a grand time trying to figure out what to do with the 7-inch netbook. Anyone remember the Xandros Linux that came with it? Yeah, it wasn’t so great. Granted, that was my first extensive experience with Linux and I really learned a lot from it, but man, was that netbook-flavored Linux distro so not ready for primetime.
Anyway, Asus has since then avoided releasing anything with Linux preinstalled and has since gone the route of Windows XP – and recently Windows 7 – on its Eee PC line, be it netbooks or nettops. But at Newegg, they are selling an Eee PC EB202 nettop mysteriously preinstalled with Red Flag Linux. Red Flag Linux by the way is designed to look a lot like Windows XP, and is looking like the de facto Linux OS used in China. Apparently, even internet cafes are being forced to switch to Red Flag Linux even though they own legitimately-licensed Windows XP installs.
Anyway, the Eee Box EB202 with Red Flag Linux installed has 1GB of RAM, a 160Gb hard drive, 802.11b/g/n WiFi, Ethernet, a 1.6 GHz intel Atom N270 processor, and it also comes with a mouse and keyboard. According to Liliputing, “Newegg is selling the nettop for $219.99, but after a $30 mail-in rebate the price drops to $189.99 plus free shipping.”
Personally, I’m surprised that Asus went with Red Flag Linux instead of, you know, much more capable Linux distros such as Ubuntu. But then replacing the OS should be easy enough for us, right?
