Kubuntu Netbook Release Coming

There is a small mention in the Ubuntu 9.10 Alpha 3 Technical Overview that says "Kubuntu includes its first Netbook release". (For those who might not know, Kubuntu is the Ubuntu version with a KDE desktop rather than the standard Ubuntu Gnome desktop.) I find this very interesting, because of my personal interest in netbook Linux, and the fact that although I think that the "standard" Ubuntu Netbook Remix is quite good, it doesn't work well on my HP 2133 netbooks because in needs GL graphic support.

So, off to the Kubuntu 9.10 Alpha 3 Technical Overview. Not a lot more information there; it just says that there is a netbook image, but all that has been done so far is some changes in desktop and font settings, but more will be coming soon. This actually sounds like a good start to me, because what I would really like to see is a netbook-oriented distribution which takes the approach of just adjusting a standard Linux desktop to accommodate typical netbook hardware, rather than having a totally new desktop like UNR and Moblin do.

I've downloaded the Kubuntu netbook image, and converted it to a bootable USB stick using the Ubuntu 9.04 USB Startup Disk Creator (found under System/Administration). I have then booted that Live image on my ASUS N10J, and it looks pretty good. However, I don't use KDE much, so I'm not familiar enough with it to do much more at this time. I'll keep looking at the Live images as the development cycle moves along, and if they do some more interesting things I'll eventually try loading and running it on one or more of my netbook/nettop systems.

jw 10/8/2009