2.

1 VEGA ZZ installation on the Asus Eee PC

2.1.1 Introduction
2.1.2 What's you need
2.1.3 Preparing the Windows XP CD
2.1.4 Windows XP installation
2.1.5 Using a SD card to increase the storage
2.1.6 VEGA ZZ installation
2.1.7 Optimizing the VEGA ZZ configuration
2.1.8 Increasing the Eee PC computational power
2.1.9 More power ...

2.1.1 Introduction

With the Eee PC product line, Asus introduced a new notebook concept in which weight and dimensions
are minimized to use the PC anywhere. This small PC is perfect to create an ultra-mobile workstation to
explain the molecular modelling concepts in the classroom, to realize a new idea anywhere, to control your
HPC system trough the wireless connection, etc.
At this time, Eee PC is available only with the powerful Xandros operating system that is unable to run
VEGA ZZ. Fortunately, Asus included all drivers to install Windows XP, making possible to run VEGA
ZZ. Due to the small SSD (Solid State Disk) storage system, the installation procedure requires attention to
reduce the waste of disk space.

2.1.2 What's you need

 Asus Eee PC 4G or 8G (Surf).

 Microsoft Windows XP Professional (the Home edition seems to have problems with the Eee PC).
 Asus support DVD included in the Eee PC box.
 External USB DVD-Rom drive. It could be enough a CD-Rom drive, but a 2 Gb USB Pen Drive is
required to install the drivers.
 4-16 Gb SDHC card (optional if the operating system is enough shrink).
 A desktop Windows PC with CD/DVD writer.
 nLite software (available for free at http://www.nliteos.com).
 Windows XP Service Pack 2 or 3 (click here to download the SP2).
 XP Remove Hotfix Backup (click here to download the Zip file).
 EeeClock utility to change the Eee PC FSB from 70 to 100 MHz (click here to download it).
 Latest VEGA ZZ setup package (available for free at http://www.ddl.unimi.it/vega).
2.1.3 Preparing the Windows XP CD

Not all components installed by the standard Windows setup are really required (e.g. the driver database,
some services, etc) and thanks to nLite is possible to exclude some of them to reduce the disk space
occupied by the operating system.
A complete tutorial to create a slimmed installation CD is available at:
http://wiki.eeeuser.com:80/howto:nlitexp

2.1.4 Windows XP installation

Before proceeding the Windows setup, backup your data because they will be overwritten.

 Plug the USB cord of the external CD/DVD-Rom drive into a free USB port of your Eee PC.
 Turn on your laptop and press F2 to go to the BIOS setup.
 In the Advanced settings page, switch the OS Installation field to Start.
 Go into Onboard Devices Configuration submenu and enable all peripherals.
 In the Boot page, go in the Boot Device Priority and put the USB CD/DVD-Rom drive as 1st Boot
Device.
 Put the slimmed Windows XP CD in the drive.
 In the Exit page, choose Exit & Save Changes and press Enter.

After the reset, the Windows XP Setup procedure will start.

WARNING:
the following step deletes all data previously saved in the SSD and they will lost definitively.

 When the setup shows the disk where install the operating system, remove all four Xandros
partitions and select all unpartitioned space using the NTFS file system.
 At the setup end, go to the BIOS settings (press F2 when the system boots) and in the Advanced
settings page, switch the OS Installation field to Finish.
 In the Exit page, choose Exit & Save Changes and press Enter.

To reserve more disk space, you could disable the Automated System Recovery (ASR):

 Start Windows, go to the Control Panel (Start -> Settings -> Control Panel), click Switch to
Classic View and double click the System icon.
 Select the System restore tab and uncheck Turn off System Restore on all drives.
 Click the OK button.

The system restore service is no more needed and so it can be disabled:

 Go to the Control Panel, double click Administrators Tools, double click Services.
 Double click System Restore Service and in the General tab push the Stop button.
 In the Startup type field, select Disabled.

Optionally, to speed-up the boot and increase the amount of free physical memory, the remote assistance
and the desktop sharing van be disabled:

 Go to the Control Panel, double click System and select the Remote tab.
 Uncheck both Remote assistance and Desktop sharing.
 Press the OK button.

Driver installation:
  Put the Asus support DVD in the DVD-Rom drive. If your drive reads CDs only, use the DVD-
Rom reader of your desktop PC to copy all files from the ASUS DVD to a pen drive (2 Gb are
enough).
 The DVD should start automatically if the autorun is enabled, but if it's not enabled, run Setup.exe
in the root directory.
 Use the automated procedure to install all drivers.

Update the operating system:

 Use Windows update to download the latest operating system hotfixes.

 Install DirectX 9 APIs using the Web setup (http://www.microsoft.com/directx)

These steps reduce the amount of disk space, removing the backup files:

 Open the command prompt and type:

sfc /purgecache

and press return to clear the system backup files.

 Download XP Remove Hotfix Backup, unzip and run it.

 Click the Continue button.
 Click Remove Backup Files and Add/Remove entries. In this way, the updates can't be uninstalled,
but a large amount of disk space is freed.

Some other files can be deleted:

 Delete all directories in C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig$ and not $hf_mig$. This is the hotfix setup
directory.
 Delete all files and directories in C:\WINDOWS\Help and not Help. This directory contains the
Windows XP help files: removing them, the help will be unavailable.

To increase the available disk space, it's possible to reduce the Internet Explorer file cache to 8 Mb and the
size of the swap file used as virtual memory.

 Go to the Control Panel and double click the Internet Options icon.
 In the General tab, Browsing history section, click the Settings button.
 In the Temporary Internet Files box, put 8 as disk space.
 Click the Ok button.

Change the size of the swap file:

 In the Control Panel, double click the System icon.

 Choose the Advanced tab and in the Performance area, click the Settings button.
 In the dialog that opens up, choose the Advanced tab and select Change in the Virtual memory box.
 In the Paging file size for selected drive, put 256 in both Initial size and Maximum size fields.
 Click the OK button two times.

If you expanded the memory of your Eee PC from 512 Mb to 2 Gb, installing a 2 Gb SoDIMM DDR2 667
MHz module, you could consider to disable the virtual memory, selecting No paging file.

2.1.5 Using a SD card to increase the storage

A 4-16 Gb SDHC (Secure Digital High Capacity) card is a good choice to increase the storage size,
moving some directories on it.
  Insert the card in the slot on the right side of your Eee PC. It will be automatically recognized by
Windows XP.

A new SDHC card is pre-formatted with the FAT32 file system that is not very efficient to manage the disk
space due to the too big cluster size. For this reason, some disk space is lost writing small files on the SD.
To avoid the problem, you could format the card with NTFS file system that generates smaller clusters.
Unluckily, Windows XP doesn't allow to format the removable devices with NTFS, but the convert.exe
included in the standard Windows distribution can convert any disk from FAT16/32 to NTFS.

 Open the command prompt and type:

convert e: /fs:ntfs

 and press return. After few seconds, the old FAT32 disk is converted to NTFS.
 In the E: disk, create My Documents, Program Files and Temp directories.
 Change the pre-defined My Documents directory to E:\My Documents, clicking with the right
mouse button on My Documents on the desktop, selecting Properties and changing the destination
to E:\My Documents. In this way, all files putted in the My Documents folder will be automatically
saved in the SD card.

Use the E:\Program Files directory to install the new softwares, reserving the internal SSD for the system
files.
Another good idea to is to move the Outlook Express data files from the user profile directory in C: to E:

 Create the E:\My Documents\Outlook Express directory.

 Start Outlook Express and create your e-mail profile if you didn't create one.
 In the menu bar, select Tools -> Options ... and in the Maintenance tab click on the Store Folder
button.
 In the dialog window, click the Change button and browse E:\My Documents\Outlook Express.
 Click OK. The changes will be made after you exit and restart Outlook Express copying
automatically all files from the old to the new directory.

2.1.6 VEGA ZZ installation

In this section will be explained how to install VEGA ZZ on the Eee PC.

 Download the latest VEGA ZZ package and start the setup.

 Choose the setup language and press OK.
 Click Next, choose I accept the agreement and click Next.
 As installation directory, put E:\Program Files\VEGA ZZ and click Next.

The Eee PC has a Celeron M CPU and the components for the other CPU models can be omitted:

 Uncheck:
- Optimized components for P4 CPUs (Intel Pentium IV)
- Optimized components for K7 CPUs (AMD Duron, Athlon, Sempron)
- Optimized components for K8 CPUs (Intel Opteron, Athlon 64/FX, Sempron 64)
 Uncheck other components also:
- WinDD data de/compressor
- VEGA SE (Screen Saver Edition)
 Click Next.
 Specify where to put the VEGA ZZ item in the Start menu and click Next.
 Look the file extension associations and press Next.
 Finally, click the Install button.
 Install the REBOL script engine in the E:\Program Files\REBOL directory.
At this step, you need to activate VEGA ZZ, following the procedure explained in the Installation and
activation chapter.

2.1.7 Optimizing the VEGA ZZ configuration

VEGA ZZ 2.2.0 can detect the Eee PC and automatically enables some window optimizations, but if you
are running a previous version, it may be possible that you need to switch from 800x480 to 800x600 screen
resolution to manage the large windows.
The Intel GMA 900 graphic card is full working but has a limited OpenGL support:

 Multi-sample anti-aliasing not supported.

 Offline hardware rendering not fully supported (pbuffer).
 Vsync not available in window mode.
 Buggy implementation of the vertex buffer.

Intel claims OpenGL 1.4 features, but bugs and missing extensions makes this graphic adapter OpenGL 1.2
compliant only.

For the best view experience:

 Enable the vector anti-aliasing (click here).

 Disable the vertex buffer in surface rendering (click here).

2.1.8 Increasing the Eee PC computational power

The Eee PC is factory downclocked to increase the battery life, but if the stock computational power is not
enough for you, it's possible to change the Front Side Bus (FSB) from 70 to 100 MHz. In this way, the
CPU goes from 630 to 900 MHz with a 30 % increment of the computational power. This is not a real
overclock because the Celeron M was designed by Intel to run with a 100 MHz FSB.

 Download the EeeClock software, unzip and run it.

 In the tray bar, click on the 70 icon and choose Full (100 MHz) in the menu. Your Eee PC is now
running at 900 MHz.

You can change FSB in any time, but I found problems suspending the system when the FSB differs from
70 MHz (system lock).

WARNING:
The Author of this guide accepts no responsibility for hardware/software damages.

2.1.9 More power ...

If the Celeron M @ 900 MHz is not enough for your MM calculations, VEGA ZZ can help you to break
this barrier thanks to the possibility to run remote jobs (see Configuration of remote hosts).

2.1.9.1 What's you need

 A fully configured Eee PC with VEGA ZZ (see above).

 Desktop PC or a HPC system running Windows or Linux.
 Network connection for both PCs.
 Latest VEGA ZZ setup package (available for free at http://www.ddl.unimi.it/vega).
 AMMP VEGA Edition package (for Linux host only, available for free at
http://www.ddl.unimi.it/vega/download.htm).
 WarpGate package (for Linux host only, available for free at
http://www.ddl.unimi.it/vega/download.htm).
2.1.9.2 Configuration of the Windows host

In this section will be explained how to configure a remote host in order to perform MM calculations
submitted by the Eee PC (or any other remote PC).

 Install VEGA ZZ, checking Warp utilities for secure Internet connection in the Select Components
page of the setup wizard.
 Activate VEGA ZZ if you want use it in interactive mode (see the Installation and activation
chapter).

Now you need to configure the WarpTel service that is an encrypted telnet daemon (for more information,
click here).

 Start the service in interactive mode (Start -> VEGA ZZ -> WarpProject -> WarpTel -> WarpTel).
 If you are running on Windows XP, unlock the software because the firewall has detected its
TCP/IP port.
 Click on the green square icon on the tray bar and select Settings. The configuration dialog will be
shown.
 Change the User name, the Password and annotate the WarpKey (copy & paste in an empty text
file). The WarpKey is used to encrypt the connection and it's randomly generated when WarpTel
starts at first time.
 Finally, click the Ok button.
 If your host has a DNS entry, annotate its name, otherwise open the command prompt and type

ipconfig /all

and press return.

 Annotate the IP address of the Ethernet card connected to the LAN.

It's possible to run WarpTel as Windows service and the procedure to do it is explained in the WarpTel
manual.

2.1.9.3 Configuration of the Linux host

The configuration of a Linux host is a little bit hard and it's reserved to power users:

 Create an user account and annotate the user name and the password (both are required for the
client configuration).

AMMP is the calculation module and must be installed:

 Download the AMMP full package, unpack it, choose the more appropriate executable for your
system (Linux 32 or 64 bit) and copy ammp to the home directory of the user created previously.
 Change the file permissions, typing in the command shell: chmod 755 ammp

 Enable the telnet daemon, because in some Linux distribution is disabled by default.
 In the firewall settings, close the TCI/IP port 23 and open the 7000. Both these operations are
depending on the specific Linux distribution and so I'm unable to explain them step by step.

Now, you must install the WarpGate daemon that creates the encrypted tunnel between the host and the
client. To do it, you must be logged as root.

 Download the WarpGate package for Linux, unpack it.

 Run WarpKeyGen to generate the 256 bit encryption key and annotate it.
  In the warpdata/cfg directory edit the warpgate.ini file, remove the default entry and put:

; Local port Local conn. Remote host Remote port Type Key
;
======================================================================================
==================================================
7000 N localhost 23 TCP <Put here
the key generated by WarpKeyGen>

 Copy the warpgated executable in a system accessible directory (e.g. /usr/local/bin).

 Copy the waprgate.ini file in the /etc directory.
 Check the current runlevel, opening the /etc/inittab file and looking the id:X:initdefault line. X
indicates the default runlevel (usually 5).
 Change the current directory to /etc/rc.d/rcX.d, where X is the runlevel.
 Create a soft link to warpgated: ln -s /usr/local/bin/warpgated S98warpgated

 To start the service reboot the system or type /usr/local/bin/warpgated

2.1.9.4 Configuration of the client (Eee PC)

 Starts VEGA ZZ.

 In the menu bar, select Tools -> Host configuration: the Host configuration window will appear.
 Press the Add button.
 Put the host Name (e.g. My host), the Type (Linux for Linux 32 and 64 bit, Windows 9x for
Windows 95/98/ME or Windows NT for Windows NT4/2000/XP/XP x64/Server 2003/Vista).
 Set the number of thread that the remote host is capable to run at the same time (it's the number of
CPUs/cores, including the virtual CPUs).
 In the Address field, put the DNS host name or the IP address and type 7000 in the Port field.
 Put the User name, the Password and the WarpKey as in the WarpTel configuration.
 Check Encryption to enable the secure encrypted connection.
 Optionally type the host Description.
 Press the Save button.

The client configuration is finish and now a test is required.

2.1.9.4 Running a remote calculation

To do this step, the Eee PC must be connected to the LAN or to Internet if the host is connected to it. This
is the best scenario because in this way you can use anywhere the computational power of the remote host.
The Eee PC connection can be done indifferently by Ethernet or wireless adapters.

 Open the VEGA ZZ console (View -> Console). It's closed by default when the Eee PC is detected
by VEGA ZZ 2.2.0.
 Open the molecule a3.mol2 in the ...\VEGA ZZ\Molecules directory (File -> Open).
 Select Calculate -> Ammp -> Minimization and in the Minimization tab, put 3000 Minimization
steps, 0.01 as Toler and 0 Steepest steps.
 Choose Conjugate gradients as minimization algorithm.
 In the Hosts tab, click on one My host item. There are more than one hosts with My host name if the
remote system can manage more than one thread at the same time.
 Click the Run button. If all settings are right, the calculation starts and the console shows the
progress.

We successfully tested the Eee PC with a dual AMD Operton 250 @ 2.4 GHz workstation running Windows XP and a
eight dual core AMD Opteron 875 @ 2.2 GHz (16 cores) HPC system running 64 bit Linux (CentOS distribution):
imagine the amazing power of this last system inside your small Eee PC ...