The first reference for installing debian on an Eee PC is The Debian Eee PC project. However it says on its models page that it does not fully support 1201HA, because it uses the Poulsbo chipset. The reason is that it’s not supported by mainstream debian:

Today the Eeebuntu team launched the first public beta of Eeebuntu 4.0, which drops the Ubuntu base for Debian Linux.

The team behind Eeebuntu, an ASUS Eee netbook-optimised version of Ubuntu Linux, has announced that compatibility issues with Ubuntu 9.10 – Karmic Koala – has led them to abandon Ubuntu and build their work upon Debian Linux from now on.

The team has decided to move away from Ubuntu in its next release. Instead, Eeebuntu 4.0 will be based on Debian Unstable.

After working with the original EEEPC 701 (a.k.a. 4G) for a couple of months, I decided it would be worth it to upgrade to the EEEPC 900HD.

In the end, it really wasn’t that difficult to get Mepis 8.0 installed on a 4 GB Kingston pendrive and booting with ease from the Ubuntu Grub on the mbr.

Recently I’ve got an EeePC 1000HE and lately also an UMTS-Stick, the Fonic Surf-Stick (a Huawei E160). I’ve read before that many people got this UMTS-Stick running on Linux, some even with Fonic, but none of them – it seems – used Debian lenny.

We’re pleased that Lenny released with good support for the Eee PC and are now turning our efforts to make Squeeze even better, while continuing to provide support for our Lenny user base.