I recently bought an Eee 1000 with Linux installed and have since removed Xandros and installed Debian Linux on it.

At this point, only WiFi is a bit of a let down, as the Ralink driver doesnt seem to interact well with NetworkManager.

The solution I picked for now was to install a Zydas wifi card I pilfered from an old laptop, however it simply didnt work.

It turns out that the existing MiniPCI-e wifi card uses pci-e and the zydas one is USB (MiniPCI-e slots have USB signals on them). There were two issues:

  - The Zydas card has a 'secret' enable line on pin 20, which I modded to be connected permanently to pin 52. The Eee turns pin 52 on/off to control the wifi card)
  - The Eee 1000 Minicard slot has no USB signal on pins 36 and 38.

The  pictures below show how I intercepted the USB signal from the unused '3G modem' MiniPCI-e slot, and used them to provide a 'fully featured' MiniPCI-e slot into which I can plug the Zydas card.

As you can see, the USB signal for the unused '3G' slot is disabled due to missing two zero-ohm links on the bottom of the PCB. I simply bridged these two pairs of pads, which restored them to full functionality.


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Unmodified PCB.

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USB lines re-enabled using solder bridges.

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The connections on the '3G' mini-PCIe slot. (the other wires were later removed, its just ground and +5V I used for something else)

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Connecting the USB lines to the 'WiFi' MiniPCI-e slot. (Note araldite (epoxy) to secure them after soldering)

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All done.