The Proliferation of Linux

Mark Shuttleworth has provided more information about Ubuntu Netbook Remix in his blog.

The aim was to do something very simple that could be tested easily, work with touch devices and made shippable very quickly. It also needed to be efficient on lower-power devices, and work well with Intel hardware, which seems to be the preferred platform for this generation of devices and allows us to slip a few nice effects in that would be hard without the right hardware support.

The new launcher is free software - so far, everything Canonical has funded, written and published for general public use on Ubuntu has been under the GPL. Currently we use GPLv3. You can grab the relevant packages from a public PPA, just add the following entry to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/netbook-remix-team/ubuntu hardy main


The PPA contains a number of packages for the launcher, some GNOME panel applets, window manager tweaks and themes. These bits and pieces are small but improve the experience of Ubuntu run with the netbook launcher on screens with lower vertical resolution. There’s also some code in there specific to the Intel netbook hardware platforms, don’t install ume-config-netbook unless you are on the right hardware

Mark Shuttleworth [via Slashdot]

The Linux and Open Source Blog has a couple of videos of Ubuntu Netbook Remix.  Don’t expect anything fancy, especially as there isn’t any commentary or anything like that.  Just a couple of videos of somebody clicking around…

Also check the second video after the break.

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Canonical recently unveiled its version of Ubuntu for sub-notebooks, Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR).  Laptop magazine has an interesting interview with Gerry Carr, marketing manager at Canonical, on the new Atom-powered OS.

I would say that the highlights are

• a boot time of 5-10 seconds
• UNR will only be available pre-installed
• UNR will not be available as a ready ISO for end users, rather it is meant for OEMs
• OEMs can customize the UI, if they wish.

Read the full article for more.

Laptop [via Slashdot]

Ars Technica has a hands on review of Ubuntu Netbook Remix.  Overall they seem to be pretty impressed with it.  Now we just have to wait for some actual hardware that comes with it, expected later this year.

Ars Technica

Canonical has unveiled it’s version of Ubuntu for UMPCs and sub-notebooks.  It is a “reworked desktop image of Ubuntu built specifically for a new category of portable internet-centric devices.”  It is meant to “get [users] online more quickly and [give them] faster access to their favorite applications.” It “leverages Moblin technologies optimized for the Intel Atom processor.”

Ubuntu Netbook Remix is set to make its first appearance on devices later this year.

See the full press release and a gallery of screenshots after the break.

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