The eeePC uses Xandros Linux with IceWM desktop with a tabbed interface. If you
add two KDE files, kicker and ksmserver, then you can use KDe instead. This
isn't easy to do unless you know enough to open the terminal and load Synaptic
which is the only way to run Synaptic which is installed but not otherwise
available to the user.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC (see table at bottom for OSes
available)

Unfortunately ASUS has gone over to the darkside and is peddling Windows
versions and is not even offering Linux in some countries and many of these are
Linux bastions making the eeePC the vanguard for M$. Sadly I regret buying mine
for this reason only. It is a great little machine.

The eeePC can run PCLOS minime, but it does not work as well as the Xandros that
comes with it. There was a PCLOS version made for the eeePC, but the maintainer
was shipped to Iraq and it is no longer active. If your friend was running PCLOS
then it did not come with the machine.

Steven Vaughan-Nichols, former Ziff Davis editor at large and now Linux blogger
and writer, has said that Xandros is the largest distro by virtue of eeePC sales
alone which have gone through the roof. This is optimistic however as many users
like me replace Xandros with another OS, but his point is well taken as Xandros,
now flush with cash, has since bought Linspire.