woo hoo, I was an early adopter of the eeepc 701 (before the beginning of 2008 anyway), and I was pleased that it could run secondlife if a bit sluggishly. Imagine my disappointment when I tried my new 901 and got the dreaded 'window creation error', but closer inspection revealed that it was colour depth that was causing the problem, and I found this excellent entry that helped me solve it:
http://mindboosternoori.blogspot.com/2008/06/installing-second-life-on-eee-pc.html
..now it works a treat, better than the 701.
