Everybody and their third cousin twice removed seems to be jumping into the low cost subnotebook field these days. The latest entry is Norhtec's Gecko Laptop. The laptop will reportedly cost less than $300, and will sport a 1GHz VIA processor and Linpux Linux Lite, a custom distro designed for devices with small screens. I checked out Linupus Lite a few weeks ago, and it seems to closely resemble the Easy Mode version of Xandros that Asus installs on the Eee PC.


The Gecko is aimed at developing markets, as are the XO Laptop and Intel's Classmate PC. But I think Asus's success at marketing the Eee PC to developing nations has shown that that there is a market for low cost, underpowered devices everywhere. Hopefully we'll see a slightly higher priced Gecko Laptop in Europe, the US, and other developed regions at some point.

[via Desktop Linux]

Ubuntu isn't the only Linux distribution targeting mobile devices like the Asus Eee PC. Chinese Linux developers Linpus have been working on Linpus Lite for a while now. It's a custom distro designed for low power, small screen devices.

Linpus Lite requires just 512MB of RAM for installation, and should run on any device with 128MB of RAM. It also has a user interface that's optimized for devices with 7-inch or smaller screens.

Users get a choice of two interfaces, a simplified UI that looks and feels a lot like the "Easy Mode" interface for the Eee PC and a full KDE desktop. But switching between the simple and full mode with Linpus Lite is much easier than with the Eee PC's custom Xandros interface. Linpus Lite has a little "swich" (sic) icon in the taskbar that lets you switch between desktop modes in a matter or seconds.

As far as software, Linpus Lite includes OpenOffice.org, Firefox, and applications for sending email, instant messages, viewing multimedia files, and pretty much everything else you'd want.

For now, Linpus Lite is only available as a LiveCD. There's no way to install it to a disk. I tested it out on my Toshiba laptop, which doesn't tend to play well with most Linux distros and Linpus Lite was no different. My WiFi card wasn't recognized so I wasn't able to get online. And when I tried to load up a game of SuperTux, my computer froze up on me. But the UI is clean and easy to use. I'd love to see a custom version of Linpus Lite for the Eee PC, Cloudbook, or other ultraportable laptops.

I'd actually been meaning to post about Linpus Lite for a few days, but I've been having a heck of a time trying to download it from the official web site. Don't get me wrong, the file is available, but the download speeds have been rather sluggish. Fortunately, if you search Google for "LinpusLinux-LiveCD-i386.iso" you should be able to find a torrent which may or may not provide you with a quicker download option.

[via Asus Eee Hacks]