Ubuntu Netbook Remix

[Dr Mordrid]

ArsTechnica Link....

Hands on with the Ubuntu Netbook Remix

Canonical, the company behind the highly popular Ubuntu Linux distribution, unveiled its Ubuntu Netbook Remix yesterday at the Computex show in Taiwan. The Remix is based on Ubuntu Mobile Edition and is designed specifically for mobile computers with a subnotebook form factor.

The Asus Eee PC completely changed the game for budget mobile computing. Following in the wake of the Eee's success, a number of competing products have emerged with similar features and pricing models. Many of these are offered with some version of the open-source Linux operating system. A customizable Ubuntu-based platform that is designed specifically for such systems could attract considerable interest from hardware makers.

Although the Remix hasn't been released yet in its entirety, the source code is already available for several core components of the unique user interface. We managed to put the pieces together and get a working Netbook Remix desktop environment running on a regular Ubuntu 8.04 system. Unlike the Maemo interface, which uses the lightweight Matchbox window manager, the Remix interface is designed to overlay seamlessly on top of Ubuntu's conventional GNOME desktop environment. The implementation is, overall, quite ingenious in many ways, but there are still places where it feels a bit clunky. The project is clearly early in its development and we will likely see the rough spots even out as it evolves.

Ready to launch

The heart of the Remix user interface is its customized Ubuntu Mobile Edition (UME) Launcher which replaces the desktop and provides access to applications and other important system functionality. A series of application categories are displayed on the left side of the launcher and each category provides access to a set of application icons. Conceptually, it is very similar to the Eee's basic mode interface. The contents of the launcher, like the categories and the applications they contain, are taken directly from GNOME's main menu.
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[Nowhere]

Canonical does not plan to make the Netbook remix available for download or sale. It will only come pre-installed on new systems.

http://mobile.slashdot.org/mobile/08.../1837231.shtml (linkng to /. because the original interview linked from /. seems to be down at the moment)

I'm quite dissapointed with this decision...yes, the sources will be available anyway so there'll probably be some "community created" installation packages/ISOs...but I would much better prefer if Canonical catered not only to OEMs but also to people who want to change the OS shipped on their minilaptop.

BTW...could Lenovo please release one? With Trackpoint? (did you see how small touchpads are in minilaptops on the market?)

[UtwigMU]

You have a lot of options:
~250-400€ used 12" X31/X32 with ultrabase, add bluetooth, 2GB, 250HDD
~600€ X41 Tablet, add solid state or live with 60GB, 1.5GB RAM
~1400€ X61s
~1900€ X61t
~2800€ X300

I'd rather have used X31/X32 than eeePC or other cheap sublaptops.

[Nowhere]

Yeah, I was thinking about getting one of X series Thinkpads. But I'm not willing to go more pricey than X40/X41, and also consider discrete GFX in X31/X32 to be a waste of battery...so that means X40/41.

Oh, and I'm not used to the idea of buying such stuff used/don't really know what to look for/watch out for. For example: worth it to hunt refurbished laptops? (and how to confirm they are indeed factory refurbished?) At least when it comes to dying batteries there's no problem, I'll get new extended one ASAP anyway

BTW UtwigMU, about HDDs...I don't really care about size - such laptop would be mostly for basic apps and Diablo2/Starcraft if I feel urge to play them in some random place (and I really wonder if Trackpoint can be sufficient here Had only brief exposure to it: hours/days; I know I'm on the "love" side of "either you love it or hate it" but never tried with games )

So I'm thinking about small SSD - longer battery life and even more rugged. When I say "small" I mean it - 8GB would be perfectly fine. And that's the area of SD card -> ATA adapters (wonder if they have any problems with Thinkpads...).
But, and here comes the question, I noticed X-series has SD card slot. Can it be used as boot drive? (and does the implementation on those Thinkpads is good/speedy enough to be used in that way?) Putting often used things on SD and using almost always sleeping HDD as "archive" seems like a good idea


edit: But the biggest dillema...let us say that I'm getting one of these and, one week later, Lenovo announces minilaptop with 10-12" widescreen (it's IMHO better for this form factor not because of movies/etc., but because, beeing wider, it allows bigger keyboard...and Lenovo doesn't have to care about not having enough place for touchpad), Atom CPU, small SSD, even longer battery time and generally more in line with R-series when it comes to extras and price...ugh.

[UtwigMU]

Used Thinkpads are great buy as long as you see them when you buy. A bit of warranty left is the best. Out of warranty repairs are also cheap since you just order or ebay parts and do it yourself. There are good online service manuals and even movies, you don't have to sign up anywhere.

I don't know about DiabloII I can own couple of early bots in UT99 with trackpoint. Otherwise at work I never connect a mouse, I live with trackpoint when I'm at the office.

If Lenovo will anounce anything 10-12" with trackpoint and called Thinkpad it will not be cheap. There is 12" Ideapad AFAIK.

Note that X31/X32 will probably require a new battery if you want to have significatnly more than an hour of life, especially gaming. I get 2h with 9-cell on T42p (dimmed screen wifi on, surfing, typing). Solid state will not save much battery life as HDD only consumes couple of wats, if you shave 2W from SSD you still have screen, CPU, GPU... The only one that would be worthy of SSD is X41 since it has slow 60GB 1.8HDD. In a year 64GB SSDs will be reasonably priced though will they also make PATA version...

If you're into small with trackpoint also check HP 2510p, though HP trackpoints can't hold a candle to IBM/Lenovo ones.

[UtwigMU]

Here's extensive pdf on power consumption under various loads for components. HDD consumes 3-7% of power of all components under normal scenarios (except for HDD read and write tests). This amounts to .5-3W, SSDs consume .1-1W, so this is .4-2 Watts savings. This translates to 3-10% longer battery life which is insignificant.

The only worthy benefit of SSDs is you can move laptop arround more freely. Only current generation of SSDs rivals physical HDDs in performance, the one in Air saw no significant performance gains even from dinky 80GB 1.8" drive.

[Nowhere]

I wouldn't call it insignificant...looking at that percentage it could easily end up beeing half hour longer, if using extended battery

And I'll use other power saving habits...for example, I usually keep my monitors at such low brightness that everybody claim they're broken/etc. (but more often than not I'm the one who doesn't need glasses yet), and I would probably force CPU to work at lowest possible frequency at all times.