In early June, Asustek Computer and Intel announced at Computex Taipei that they would soon be releasing a low-end $199 subnotebook PC, the Asus Eee PC 701. It appears to be on schedule, and when it arrives in customers' hands in late August or early September it will be running a variation of Xandros Desktop Linux.

Congratulations to all the new Christmas owners of the year's hottest subnotebook, the ASUS Eee, putting Linux square in the mainstream and right in the hands of the masses. Here's a collection of tiny – but dead useful – hints and tips to help you get the most out of it.

We recently acquired an ASUS Eee PC (if you want to know more about it, a lot of reviews are available on internet). The first thing we did when we put our hands at the ASUS Eee PC was to test its security. The ASUS Eee PC comes with a customized version of Xandros operating system installed, and some other bundled software like Mozilla Firefox, Pidgin, Skype and OpenOffice.org.

Yes, we know that the Everex CloudBook subnotebook has been delayed from arriving at the shelves of Walmart, but that doesn't mean that you can't get in on the hot gOS experience right now. As it turns out, it's perfectly possible to grab the gOS from the CloudBook and load it up on the Asus Eee PC, which so happens to be the CloudBook's direct competitor.

Over the years of reviewing ASUS products we've seen a number of interesting motherboards but the one we have our hands on for review today is one of the most interesting we have ever seen.

ASUS have released a cheap subnotebook. It is far from state-of-the-art tech-wise, with 512Mb RAM and a Celeron processor. It has a 4Gb hard drive and no optical drive. Its screen is 7” and runs at the odd resolution of 800x480 and the operating system looks like something Fisher Price might have designed. Why would you buy it? What on earth can you do with this?

ASUS is among the few tier-one hardware vendors that understands Linux. Of the dozens of ASUS products we have tested over the years, it is hard to remember a product from ASUS that did not work well with Linux.

A YEAR ago, ASUS told the press that it was "closely tied up with Microsoft.” This happened just months after ASUS had expressed its future commitment to the GNU/Linux platform and recently we learned that Microsoft probably offered kickbacks to ASUS. It is almost confirmed now. The effect on ASUS appears to be devastating as liaising with Microsoft did not really pay off.

Until recently I thought Linux was just the domain of enthusiasts and cost-conscious corporates, who for whatever reason, wanted an alternative to Windows. I never thought Linux had a contribution to make to mainstream computing. However, after purchasing a ASUS EeePC, a Linux based subnotebook, I’ve realised that I was wrong, very wrong.