The Asus Eee PC is unlikely to be your first choice of laptops for music. But it’s measly, it’s lovely, and it’s ridiculously seedy. Some CDM-reading computer enthusiasts are biting, as we found discernible in March when we asked you if you had turned the Eee PC into a music receptacle.

On the Linux side, you’ve got lots of options. most adroitly quantity these, CDM reader Dan Stowell has put together a sweeping tutorial on using SuperCollider, the substantial, free sound merging engine. You can even count up business GUIs using a free Java-based tool. There are also plenty of DIY environments benefit of music working nicely (Csound and Pd included, as manifestly), gist the Eee can shortly become a programmable, dedicated investigate machine and synth in behalf of the price of the cheapest closed-package trap, name-marque piece of music gear.

Linux also supports various music tools that lend themselves to a lower-object gismo, like music tracker MilkyTracker. hindrance it to in videos on the Eee: Eee-PC MilkyTracker Xandros, more. (Thanks, emrox!)

The surprise is, complete-blown Windows software holds its own. From the NI forums, a group of manly Guitar Rig 3 users have fired up XP and acquire a extremely usable, self-contained Guitar Rig computer:

Guitar Rig on Eee PC [Native Instruments forums; thanks to Jahmal Tonge throughout the tip!]

The trick is, you do distress modded video drivers to fathom use of 1000×600 resolution, thus accommodating the alcohol interface. Forum members also insinuate avoiding the newer Atom poser as they believe it bequeath be slower. Then again, while this buttress of concept is tantalizing, I’d all things considered stick a restrain out benefit of more-substantial mini PCs coming out of order — and the fact that music works this well on this machine means it sole gets better from here.

Computer Music Magazine did do a review of the Eee, and were a slight more hard-nosed about the Eee’s downsides (though the stubbornness slash here helps at least with that obstreperous). But then, the other way of looking at this is that the Eee is only the beginning. Plenty more budget mini-laptops are coming; already machines from HP and others close the disparity with “conventional”, pricier laptops. Linux distributions may soon target these configurations (Ubuntu has promised a “remix”), and Microsoft has committed to keeping XP and Vista flourishing on these machines, as genially. And that means the outlay divide with computer music is getting erased fast.