Ubuntu Netbook Remix: An Ubuntu Distro Designed for UMPC’s
Have you noticed lately the upsurge in sub-compact notebooks? The Asus Eee line, the MSI Wind, HP and Dell’s new offerings… In a time when gas and food prices continue to rise, nearly everyone’s budgets are being tried, every dollar is being stretched further. Perhaps economics is one reason for these tiny machines sudden proliferation, but one of the ways these sub-compact notebooks keep the prices down is by bundling them with open source software.
Canonical, the company behind the Linux-based OS Ubuntu, plans to seize the moment by creating its own version of the popular distro for sub-compact notebooks called Ubuntu Netbook Remix, which it recently revealed at Computex earlier this week. The OS is a trimmed down and optimized version of its regular OS, with an interface that’s better attuned to the sub-compact market. The interface is sleek even at this point in development (if a bit brown), and includes features like tabbed window navigation, and optimization for Intel’s new Atom mobile processor line.
My guess is that you’re only going to see this trend in mobile computing continue. There used to be a real technical gap a user would have to span in going from, say, Windows XP over to Linux. That’s not so much an issue any more, and while Microsoft flounders with the bloated Vista kernal, manufacturers are finding it advantageous and cheaper to migrate to open-source initiatives. The best example of a major company being successful with OSS is probably Google, who’s backbone is run entirely on Linux. Expect this to be the first wave in widespread adoption of Linux, with Google Android only helping to further it.
[ Via Arstechnica ]
