Our sister site, Linux.com, ran a great article this week about putting Puppeee Linux on an Eee PC. Author Dmitry Popov says that the lean, mean distro that’s based on Puppy Linux “provides an excellent combination of Puppy Linux’s nifty features and solid support for Eee PC hardware.” The article made me wonder what neat projects are being hosted at SourceForge that are aimed at ultra-portable computers. As it turns out, there’s quite a few.
Developers of Ubuntu Eee are working on making Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) run on the Eee. In addition to optimizing it for the ultra-portable PC, they also plan to ensure it looks good on the 800×460 screen that’s only 7″wide.
Other Eee PC projects in the works include jEeeConfig, a tool to configure the easy mode menu on any Eee PC, and Eee Applet for monitoring ACPI info. There’s even an ASUS-supported Eee community where users and developers gather to share ideas and work together to develop new apps for the Eee PC series.
The OLPC XO laptop has a lot of projects in the works. There are several games available, including XO-Falldown, XO Quiz, and FiftyTwo, which features a whole set of card games. Interested in developing your own games for OLPC? Give Boardwalk or Treenix a try.
If the XO’s native version of Linux doesn’t suit you, try SlackwareOLPC instead. Use Tablet Redux Software to turn your XO laptop into media player and PDA or tote your eBooks around with lapWiki.
I didn’t come across any projects geared toward the Classmate PC but if I missed them, be sure to let me know in the comments.
Ultra-portable laptops are the newest rage — and with good reason. They’re affordable, easy to use, practical, and run Linux without breaking a sweat. It’s great to see so many projects underway to enhance their usefulness even more!