I knew there was going to be big Linux netbook news coming out of the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, but I didn’t know it was going to be this big. Sources at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, tell me that Canonical will be announcing new partnerships with Intel, SanDisk, and RealNetworks. To me, the biggest news is that Canonical will be demonstrating the Moblin version of the UNR (Ubuntu Netbook Remix).
This demo is based on the current beta code from Intel. As far as I know, this version won’t immediately be available to the public. However, Canonical will also be announcing that they’ll develop a UNR based on the full release of Moblin 2. Canonical and Intel sources both say that the full version of Moblin 2 will be out by year’s end.
UNR is a slimmed down version of Ubuntu 8.04, that’s meant to get the most out of a netbook’s limited hardware. Unlike most versions of Ubuntu, this one is meant only for OEMs (original equipment manufacturers), rather than users. It’s meant to make it easy for them to ship Ubuntu-powered, Intel Atom-based netbooks. Specifically, UNR is designed to work with and Intel Atom processor, 512MBs of RAM and at a 4GB SSD (Solid State Drive) or hard disk.