Using the Asus Eee PC by William Lawrence (2008, Paperback)

This book is well written and quite comprehensive. The main downside is that Asus is coming out with so many models that not all of them are covered here. The original EEE PC is barely a year old. This book covers it, and the 900 series, but the 1000 is mentioned in a paragraph referring to future EEE models. Still, the vast majority of what this book covers is common to all models.

The main reason that this book is so necessary is that the EEE, like many netbooks, comes in both Linux and Windows XP models. While XP is fairly normal, most people are not that familiar with Linux, and the Xandros Linux used by the EEE is not the most popular distribution. In addition the EEE uses a tabbed "Easy Mode" interface which is specific to this line, so much more handholding is needed with a relatively unfamiliar system.

This book does that weil. While the EEE PC can be used very nicely as an "appliance" computer, using only the built in software (which is quite good), The EEE Handbook will help you go beyond that. There are sections on customizing Easy Mode, on enabling the full KDE desktop, which adds a lot of capabilities, on adding additional software (which Asua makes more difficult than it should be), on configuring wireless networking, and on learning the Linux command line. If you decide to give up on Linux and convert to Windows XP, there are chapters on doing that as well (I'm sticking with Linux).

This book would be useful for any EEE PC owner, but ther closer you are to being an owner of the Linux model who doesn't know Linux well, the more essential it becomes.