Reviving an ASUS EeeTop as a Linux Kitchen PC

Computers, PC, Posts, Retrocomputing

A practical guide to legacy hardware, touchscreens, and patience

TL;DR
I turned an old ASUS EeeTop Atom touchscreen PC into a fast, reliable kitchen calendar and email display using Linux Mint XFCE.
The key challenges were legacy BIOS booting, GRUB installation, touchscreen drivers, and Wi-Fi quirks — all of which are solvable with the right (boring) configuration.

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Hardware overview

ASUS EeeTop on the workbench

The ASUS EeeTop all-in-one PC before refurbishment.

My EeeTop has:

  • Intel Atom D510 (dual-core, 64-bit capable)
  • Legacy BIOS (no UEFI support)
  • Integrated NVIDIA ION graphics
  • Built-in NextWindow touchscreen
  • Internal Atheros Wi-Fi
  • 2.5” SATA hard drive (replaced)

Essential upgrades

SSD and RAM upgrade Replacing the original hard drive with an SSD and upgrading the RAM.

Before touching software, I strongly recommend:

  • Replace the HDD with an SSD
  • Max out the RAM (cheap and very effective)

This alone makes the system feel dramatically more responsive.

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OS choice

I chose Linux Mint XFCE because it is:

  • Lightweight
  • Stable
  • Conservative
  • Well documented
  • Familiar to anyone who has used Windows

XFCE also performs well on Atom CPUs and doesn’t insist on GPU acceleration.

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Step 1: BIOS configuration (important)

Enter the BIOS (usually F2) and ensure:

  • Boot mode: Legacy / CSM
  • UEFI: Disabled
  • Secure Boot: Disabled
  • SATA mode: AHCI
  • Legacy USB support: Enabled

Save and exit.

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Step 2: Booting the installer (graphics quirks)

Linux Mint boot screen Linux Mint installer booting in compatibility mode.

On this hardware, the installer may hang on a black screen with white squares.

If that happens:

  • Boot the Linux Mint DVD
  • Choose Compatibility Mode, or
  • Edit the boot entry and add the following kernel parameter:
nomodeset

If the system still hangs, unplug the Ethernet cable during boot.
Surprisingly, this can avoid early boot deadlocks on older Atom systems.

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Step 3: Correct disk partitioning (legacy BIOS!)

This is where most people go wrong.

Open GParted before installing

Menu → Administration → GParted

GParted with msdos partition table Using an msdos (MBR) partition table instead of GPT.

Create a new partition table

  • Device → Create Partition Table
  • Choose: msdos

⚠️ Do not use GPT
⚠️ Do not create an EFI partition

Create a single partition

  • Primary
  • ext4
  • Use the full disk

You should end up with:

/dev/sda1  ext4

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Step 4: Install Linux Mint

Start the installer and when asked about installation type:

  • Choose “Something else”

Assign:

  • /dev/sda1 → mount point / → format enabled

Bootloader location (critical)

Install bootloader to: /dev/sda

Not /dev/sda1.

You may see a warning about no EFI partition — this is normal and safe to ignore on legacy BIOS systems.

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Step 5: Fixing GRUB if the installer fails

GRUB error during install A GRUB installation failure — common on legacy systems.

If the installer reports a GRUB error:

sudo mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
sudo mount —bind /dev /mnt/dev
sudo mount —bind /proc /mnt/proc
sudo mount —bind /sys /mnt/sys
sudo chroot /mnt

Then install legacy GRUB explicitly:

grub-install —target=i386-pc /dev/sda
update-grub

Exit, unmount, and reboot.
After this, the system should boot cleanly from disk.

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Step 6: Networking quirks

Ethernet

I found Ethernet worked best if:

  • The cable was unplugged during boot
  • Plugged in after login

Once the system is running, it’s stable.

Wi-Fi (USB adapter)

USB Wi-Fi adapter Using a USB Wi-Fi adapter instead of the internal card.

The internal Atheros Wi-Fi reports a phantom hardware kill switch, which disables all Wi-Fi globally.

The clean solution:

echo “blacklist ath9k” | sudo tee /etc/modprobe.d/blacklist-ath9k.conf
sudo update-initramfs -u

After reboot, the USB Wi-Fi adapter works normally.

—

Step 7: Touchscreen support (NextWindow)

Touchscreen calibration Calibrating the built-in touchscreen.

The built-in touchscreen uses a NextWindow controller, which modern kernels don’t handle particularly well out of the box.

I used the community-maintained nwfermi driver, which improves touch behaviour — but it is an out-of-tree kernel module and can be fragile.

Lessons learned:

  • A bad boot can temporarily kill all input devices
  • Rebooting may fix it
  • Always keep a GRUB menu timeout so you can recover

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Step 8: Software choices

Browser

  • Chromium
  • Launched in kiosk mode
  • Keyring disabled using:
—password-store=basic

Email & calendar

Thunderbird calendar view Thunderbird used as a full-screen calendar display.

  • Thunderbird
  • Built-in calendar view
  • Works well with Microsoft 365 via IMAP + CalDAV
  • Can start directly in calendar mode:
thunderbird -calendar

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Step 9: Kiosk behaviour

To make the system feel like an appliance:

  • Enable auto-login
  • Disable screen blanking and sleep
  • Autostart Chromium or Thunderbird
  • Increase font sizes for touch readability
  • Disable unnecessary desktop UI elements

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The end result

Finished kitchen PC The finished kitchen PC in daily use.

The finished system:

  • Boots reliably from SSD
  • Supports touch input
  • Has wired and wireless networking
  • Displays a large, readable family calendar
  • Allows light email interaction
  • Feels purpose-built rather than “an old PC”

Most importantly, it’s pleasant to use, which is the real success metric for a kitchen device.

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Final thoughts

This project was a reminder that:

  • Legacy hardware is still very usable
  • Modern Linux defaults don’t always suit old machines
  • Explicit, boring configurations are often best
  • Touchscreens on Linux still require patience
  • Reusing old hardware can be genuinely rewarding

What started as a slow, obsolete Windows machine is now a useful, always-on household appliance — and that feels like a good outcome.

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