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The developers of the popular Linux Mint operating system have announced that you’ll soon be able to buy a Mint-branded computer… called the mintBox. It’s basically a Compulab fit-PC3 with the Mint name slapped on.

Compulab will also be sharing a portion of the proceeds with the Mint team to help fund development of the operating system.

Update: The mintBox is now available for $476 and up.

Compulab offers several small form factor PCs as part of its fit-PC line of computers. The latest models measures just 6.3″ x 6.3″ x 1″ and use low power AMD processors and Radeon HD graphics.

The cheapest models in the fit-PC3 lineup are barebones systems that come without memory, hard drives, WiFi, or other features. But if you spend $476 or more you can get a model with 2GB of RAM, a 250GB hard drive, WiFi, Bluetooth, and an operating system.

Compulab offers Windows 7 Home Premium… but you’ll save over $100 if you opt for a model with the Linux operating system instead — and right now Linux Mint is the version of Linux that Compulab offers.

In other words, you don’t need to wait for the mintBox to be officially released if you want to buy a tiny PC with the operating system preloaded.

FanlessTech reports that the wait won’t be long though… two models are due out soon. One will have an AMD G-T40N processor, while the second will have an AMD G-T56N CPU. Both will run Linux Mint 13 “Maya,” which was released last week.

There’s no word on the pricing, but Compulab currently charges $476 and $518 for fit-PC3 models with those processors and Linux Mint.