Asus Eee PCs ship with Ubuntu Linux

Asustek is preinstalling Canonical’s Ubuntu operating system for the first time in some netbooks to target the Linux market, Canonical said Thursday.

Dell is the only other major PC vendor to pre-load Ubuntu on its netbooks.

Canonical said that Asus has started shipping from June 1 three Eee PC models, the 1001PXD, 1011PX and 1015PX, with Ubuntu 10.10 pre-installed. The OS has been configured to work with the processor and networking hardware on the netbooks.

Asus was one of the first PC makers to ship netbooks, offering the Eee PC with multiple versions of the Linux OS including Xandros starting in 2007. Asus then released Windows XP netbooks starting in 2008 after Microsoft started offering Windows XP Starter, a stripped down version of Windows XP. Asus now preloads Windows on a majority of its netbooks with Linux playing second fiddle.

Ubuntu 10.10, code-named Maverick Meerkat, has editions targeted at PCs and netbooks, but Canonical didn’t say which edition would be preinstalled on the Eee PCs. The netbook edition, called Netbook Remix, has a specialized user interface for smaller screens. The latest version of Ubuntu, version 11.04, does away with the Netbook Remix edition, integrating the code into the main OS base.

The OS on the Eee PCs will come with a full productivity suite and support for Adobe’s Flash, Canonical said.

More Asus netbooks in the future will ship with Ubuntu preinstalled, Canonical said. Multiple versions of Ubuntu have been certified previously to work with certain Asus Eee PC models.

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Agam Shah
Agam Shah
Agam Shah is a reporter for the IDG News Service in New York. He covers hardware including PCs, servers, tablets, chips, semiconductors, consumer electronics and peripherals.

Related Tech News

Featured Tech Jobs

 

CDN in your inbox

CDN delivers a critical analysis of the competitive landscape detailing both the challenges and opportunities facing solution providers. CDN's email newsletter details the most important news and commentary from the channel.