The ever-growing popularity of diminutive, cheap laptops like the EeePC and its brethren have convinced Canonical, makers of Ubuntu Linux, to release a new "netbook remix" of Ubuntu optimized for such machines.
The Ubuntu netbook remix is being developed around two common elements of ultraportable laptops – limited screen size and Intel's Atom processor.
Rather disappointingly the remix will not be available as a free download. Instead the plan is offer the system directly to manufacturers. The main reason there won't be downloads available is that Canonical has licensed proprietary media codecs and other software like Adobe Flash.
The strange thing is you can still download the test code from the netbook remix site. It's possible the company may release a public version of netbook remix without the proprietary code, but so far it hasn't made any announcements.
As for what's different in the netbook remix, most of the changes are in the underlying system code, which is optimized for Atom chips. Judging by the limited screenshots available, netbook Ubuntu also features a slick-looking new launcher for accessing apps and files. The concept is similar – though considerably better looking – to the launcher that ships with the Xandros version of the EeePC.
Aside from being one of the hottest retail PC markets – EeePC maker Asus claims to have shipped a million units in the six months after its debut – so-called "netbooks" are notable because, to keep retail prices down, most manufacturers have opted to ship Linux rather than Windows.
The EeePC comes with a modified version of Xandros Linux and the Fedora community is hard at work on Eeedora, which, as the name suggests, is optimized for the EeePC.
Canonical's press release says that netbooks featuring Ubuntu Linux Remix will be on retail shelves within six months, though so far no manufacturers have announced anything specific.
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