Download Squad

There is a subculture among the Download Squad bloggers (and you thought you couldn't get any further sub-anything) of ultraportable computer users. We love the little things. They're teeny, have the right amount of power to do their designated tasks well and with little fuss, and they're fairly inexpensive.

But sometimes we're not real enamored of the default operating systems. The Eee users among us love the machine, but the verdict is out on Xandros in either simple or advanced mode. We've used eeeXubuntu, and it works well, but it seems as though the project is stuck on the Gutsy release and has no plan to move forward.

In a Guardian interview, Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu dropped the intriguing news that there is a Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu in the pipeline. Details are scant, but it seems there is some work being done with Intel to support the custom chips it manufactures for this market (no word on whether this release could leave VIA-powered machines out of the loop). There is a Launchpad account up and running, but there's not too much to see there (yet).

Ubuntu is fairly easy to tailor to ultraportables, but we're expecting that the Netbook Remix project is going to offer a bit more than resized windows and applications altered to make the most of screen real estate.

Personally, we'd most like to see tweaks made to software to extend battery life, special repositories set up for applications optimized for ultraportables, and perhaps some utilities to better support those of us who use both the internal hard drive and a supplement memory card to house the operating system.

Fellow ultraportable users, what would be on your wishlist for Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu?

[The Guardian by way of Slashdot]