Xandros and Canonical are the latest Linux distributions to announce plans to develop versions of their operating systems based on Moblin. The Moblin Linux distribution, which is backed by Intel and managed by the Linux Foundation is a custom version of Linux optimized for Intel Atom powered mini-laptops. It boots quickly, takes advantage of the chip’s power saving features, and most importantly, is designed to blur the lines between web apps and desktop apps. In other words, it focuses heavily on the “net” portion of “netbook.”

Moblin 2.0 is still in the development stages. But the makers of Linpus Linux Lite have already launched a version of their operating system based on Moblin. Yesterday Xandros announced that it’s also working on an updated version of its operating system built around Moblin. The Moblin-based version of Xandros will likely find its way onto future Asus Eee PC netbooks. Xandros has is Asus’s netbook Linux distribution of choice since day one.

And Computer World reports that Canonical, the makers of the popular Ubuntu Linux operating system, plan  to demonstrate a version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix based on Moblin this week. There’s no word on when that version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix will be available to the public.

Xandros Linux is probably best known in netbook circles as the operating system powering Asus Eee PC netbooks. But at Mobile World Congress in Spain this week, the company behind Xandros made a series of announcements related to netbooks and low powered computing devices. Probably the most significant is that there are now versions of Xandros optimized for ARM, Freescale, and Qualcomm Snapdragon chipsets.

Xandros says the OS offers “fast boot, long battery life, and reliable 3G connectivity.” ARM, Freescale and Snapdragon processors consume less power than the now-ubiquitous Intel Atom chip. But from what I can tell, Xandros will look much the same on devices with these processors as it does on netbooks with Intel Celeron or Intel Atom CPUs.

Xandros will also offer an “Application Store” with games, multimedia, web, office, and productivity apps. Of course, there are plenty of free (as in speech and beer) apps that you can run on Xandros. But the app store concept is probably appealing to computer makers who are looking for revenue streams for these low cost, low margin computers. The App Store will likely be based on the Xandros CNR Marketplace, which was created by Linspire back when it was called Lindows, and before the company was acquired by Xandros.

It looks like Asus is not planning to kill its Linux Eee PC models for northern Europe as I reported yesterday. Some reports had quoted an Asus spokesperson as saying that the company would not be offering its custom version of Xandros Linux on Eee PCs in Denmark and certain other northen European countries. But apparently that was a “misunderstanding.”

Asus spent a fair bit of time developing a custom version of Xandros designed to make the Linux distribution as easy as possible to use for people who had no experience with Linux or even folks who had little experience with computers. The custom “easy mode” interface was available on the earliest Asus Eee PC models released in the fall of 2007. Other Linux distributions including Linpus Linux Lite and Ubuntu Netbook Remix have taken cues from Asus by building their own custom program launchers with large easy to understand icons for commonly used applications.

That said, a year after the launch of the first Linux-based netbooks Asus, Acer, Dell, and Toshiba officials all say that they sell far more netbooks running Windows XP than Linux. Acer and Toshiba say more than 90% of the mini-laptops they ship are running Windows XP.

thanks Kasper!

So it turns out that if you want to sell a computer with a custom operating system in multiple countries, you have to take the initiative of translating the menus and dialogs yourself. And that’s apparently turning out to be a bit of a chore for Asus. So the company has decided not to offer Linux on Eee PCs sold in several northern European countries.

Asus will sell netbooks with Windows XP in Denmark and other northern European countries for the foreseeable future. The difference is that Microsoft has already done the heavy lifting by translating Windows into virtually every spoken language on earth.

This news comes after Asus had already announced plans to go Windows only in the Philippines.

Update: It looks like the reports of the Linux Eee PC’s northen European demise may have been somewhat exaggerated.

The version of Xandros Linux that Asus ships with Linux versions of its Eee PC line isn’t exactly the most frequently updated Linux disribution in the world. So if you want to make sure you’ve got the latest versions of software like Pidgin, Firefox, and other applications loaded into the read-only section of your netbook or nettop’s storage space, you might want to check out XEPC.

You can use XEPC to install a tweaked version of Xandros that has up to date versions of all the applications Asus preloads, plus a few extras like WINE for running some Windows applications. The advantage of using XEPC to update your software instead of just downloading and installing updates yourself is that the applications will be stored on the Eee PC’s write-only partition instead of eating up valuable space on your user partition.

XEPC can also be used to install Xandros on Eee PCs running Windows XP. The latest version of XEPC should work with most Eee PC models. You can read more about the project at its blog or at the EeeUser forums.

There’s been a lot of talk over the last few months about the future of Linux on netbooks. When the OLPC Foundation, Asus, and other early netbook makers decided to preload various Linux distributions instead of Windows on the earliest netbooks, there were a few goals. The OLPC Foundation wanted to embrace open source ideals while keeping software licensing costs to a minimum. Asus wanted to design a custom user interface that was easy to use even by people with little to no computer experience. And to keep the software licensing costs down so the company could sell cheap computers without cutting too deeply into the profit margin.

But a year later, most netbook makers offer Windows as an option. And in October an official with MSI said the company was seeing Linux versions of the MSI Wind laptop returned four times more often than Windows models. And then Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu Linux essentially confirmed that Linux notebooks are returned more frequently than Windows laptops.

Now Asus is weighing in, and CEO Jerry Shen says the company hasn’t seen any major difference between Linux and Windows Eee PC return rates.

So what’s going on here? It’s hard to say, because nobody’s really pinpointed why MSI and Canonical say Linux models are returned more often. It could be due to the fact that the MSI Wind U90 with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop was half-baked. The operating system didn’t suit the hardware, and some components, like the webcam, just didn’t work out of the box on Linux models. Or it could be due to the fact that manufacturers and retailers aren’t doing a great job of communicating the differences between Linux and Windows machines to consumers. While many people will find that a Linux computer does everything they need it to, the last thing you want to do is walk into a store and purchase a computer only to take it home and realize for the first time that it has a completely unfamiliar operating system and can’t run some of your favorite programs.

My guess is that Asus has simply done a better job of marketing their Linux machines, so that customers have a good idea of what they’re getting.

Kristin Shoemaker is one half of the podcasting team Sudo Wrestling and she blogs at OStatic and Linux Librarian. She likes to take things apart and see if she can put them back together again in new and better ways.

I am pretty well past the “geek” mark, and coming up really close to the “dork” point on the Nerd Spectrum. The first computer I ever laid eyes (or fingertips) on was some sort of Tandy species (yes, back in the day when Radio Shack made computers). My first computer in school was a Commodore PET. I was online before graphical browsers were available.

I came into the Linux world pretty late in the game. It was seven years ago this month (an incidental memory — they don’t give merit badges or cookies every Linux anniversary) that I installed my first Linux flavor on my desktop.

Here are my dirty tech secrets: I have never been able to “settle” on a distribution. There are a few I don’t like, but many I do. I adore gadgets, and the crinkly feel of anti-static packaging in my hands as I liberate a new piece of hardware, but I hate buying gadgets. And I will unabashedly admit I have never installed Linux on a laptop.

The last two secrets are why I have an EeePC 701 in front of me now, and why it will remain here (likely) far past the technology’s “Best Used By” date.

Read the rest of this entry »

My Eee PC 1000H is currently running Windows XP, so I haven’t had a chance to check this out for myself, but Sascha at Eee PC News.de reports that there’s a new version of Xandros available for Eee PC 701 users.

Xandros 1.6.1 adds a few new icons and programs to the easy mode launcher, including an Eee Connect feature, which looks like some sort of remote desktop or VNC client. The latest version of Skype for Linux is also included, which means you can make video calls without problems. There are also two new additions to the OpenOffice.org suite: OpenOffice Math and OpenOffice Draw. For some reason you’re still stuck with OpenOffice.org 2.0.4 instead of the more up to date OpenOffice.org 2.4.1.

Asus appears to have launched its new software download center for Eee PC users. The site has over 3,400 free Liinux applications including games, media players, and office applications. There’s just one problem. There doesn’t appear to be any easy way to install these programs on a current generation Eee PC.

Each program has a handy little “install” button next to it. But what happens when you click install is your computer attempts to download a file with a CNR extension. CNR stands for “click n run,” and it’s a file type designed for the Linspire Linux operating system. The idea is that you can click a file on a web page to download and install applications in Linux just as easily as you would in Windows. No need to type anything into a command line (or fire up a separate application like Synaptic).

But right now, Xandros doesn’t support CNR. And if you’ve got an Eee PC running Linux, it’s runnning Xandros (unless you installed your favorite Linux distro all by your lonesome). So what gives? Well, Xandros bought Linspire a little while back, so it’s possible that future versions of the Xandros OS will support CNR. And it’s possible that a software update could be pushed out to Xandros and Eee PC users fairly soon that will let them take advantage of the Eee PC Download center. But I have no idea why the site went live a few days ago when it’s pretty much  useless at the moment.

[via Engadget and EeeUser Forums]

Acer, Asus, and MSI may have been busy making headlines this week, but not everything is about hardware. Microsoft and Xandros both made moves this week that could have a major impact on the low cost ultraportable laptop market:

• Microsoft softens its stance on Windows XP for low cost computers: While Microsoft may have stopped selling Windows XP directly to consumers on June 30th, there are still a few ways to get the operating system. You can buy a pricey new computer with Windows Vista or Business and pay for downgrade rights. Or you can pick up a cheap laptop. Vista doesn’t run that well on machines with tiny hard drives (or solid state disks) and little RAM. So Microsoft is keeping XP alive for a few more years for companies like Asus and MSI to install on tiny laptops. This week Microsoft eased its definition of low-cost computers a bit, so now computer makers can install XP on systems with 14 inch monitors or 160GB hard drives.
• Xandros buys Linspire: In other operating system news, Xandros, makers of the Linux-based operating system that Asus uses on the Eee PC (although Asus customizes the heck out of it), has purchased Linspire, the company formerly known as Lindows. While Linspire never really caught on as the Windows XP-replacement it aimed to be, the software is easy to use and includes the ability to run many Windows applications out of the box. Perhaps future Eee PC models will take advantage of some of the better features of Linspire.