Installing Programs on the Asus Eee PC

From Notebookreview, an excellent tutorial for adding programs -

If you are comfortable using a text editor, one simple way to add programs such as Gimp is to gain root access to the console, edit a file, and tell it to install the program. Below are the step-by-step instructions:

Click on the “Work” tab and open the file manager.

Inside the file manager click on the “tools” option in the menu bar, and select the option to open a console window.

In the console window type “sudo bash”, and click enter.




You now have root access. Type “nano /etc/apt/sources.list”, which will load a simple text editor to edit this file. In the file that loads you will see two lines listing Asus servers that the Eee PC uses to pull in software applications over the web. You will want to add an additional server, by moving the cursor down an additional line (press down till you hit the last filled line, then press end, then hit enter). Then type in “deb http://xnv4.xandros.com/4.0/pkg xandros4.0-xn main contrib non-free”, and save your work. Press ctrl+x, and click “y”.





With that added, you can now install Gimp (and other applications inside that group). First you will want to refresh your Asus Eee PC's software list by typing “apt-get update” and press enter inside the same root console. Once that has completed, type “apt-get install gimp”, which will prompt you for a “y” a couple of times.

After that the Asus Eee PC handles the download and installation itself, and you are home free. Gimp is now installed on your system, and you can edit images by right clicking them and selecting Gimp as the program to edit them the same way you choose "Open with" on a Windows computer.



Using this same method you can install countless other programs (even more using other server sources).