I complain about a lot of software on this blog. But I wanted to take this opportunity to praise some software for once– Easy Peasy and Google Chrome. I’ve had some ups and downs with my Eee PC 701 netbook— great unit but the vendor-supplied Linux distribution was severely lacking. I auditioned some netbook-tailored distros last year and found one that worked reasonably well while being a bit rough around the edges — Ubuntu-Eee. One notable problem I experienced a few weeks after I installed it was that the wireless network driver quit working (though to be fair, I understand that was a greater problem due to an Ubuntu update around the same time).

These days, Ubuntu-Eee has been renamed Easy Peasy. I was finally sufficiently motivated to try installing it when enough other things on my existing Ubuntu-Eee distro had broken. Essentially all the problems that troubled me in its predecessor distro have vanished– wireless works again (though I still can’t seem to toggle it), all the sound controls work, even the hibernation works which impressed me greatly (even if I never use it).

Pertaining to web browsers, I have traditionally been satisfied with Firefox. Sure, it has been growing large in recent times, but what software hasn’t? It’s the price of software progress and all. However, I took this opportunity to try out Google Chrome which I never thought I would have reason to care about. I am roundly impressed with its speed and responsiveness. Seriously, this browser might even be lean enough for the guru to consider using on a regular basis.

I’m pleased that I can forgo a replacement for this classic Eee PC netbook for the foreseeable future.