While some popular Linux distributions such as Ubuntu put out a major update every six months, the folks behind Mandriva Linux take their time — with major updates scheduled every year or so. The next full version of Mandriva isn’t due out until August 29th, but last week the developers unveiled the first release candidate of Mandriva 2011. You can…

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Mandriva Linux might not have the name recognition of Ubuntu, Fedora, or Red Hat. But the operating system has a pretty loyal following, and the folks behind Mandriva have been quite supportive of the netbook community, incorporating support for Intel Atom processors and small screens into their Linux distribution for almost as long as netbooks have been around. Last year…

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[/caption] It’s been a busy few days on the netbook operating system front. While the vast majority of netbooks still ship with Windows, Google is about to launch a competing operating system, and the company might just have the name recognition and industry pull to make a serious dent in Microsoft’s market share. And while few netbooks still ship with…

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The Emtec Gdium Liberty netbook is set to go on sale in France at the Paris Fair this week for €349. While most netbooks available today feature Intel Atom processors, 160GB hard drives, and Windows XP, there are a few companies thinking outside the box. And few of them are further outside the box than Emtec. The Gdium Liberty netbook…

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Mandriva was one of the first Linux distributions to attempt to build support for netbook hardware into the standard operating system. Instead of downloading and installing a custom version of Mandriva for an Eee PC, for example, for the past year you’ve been able to install the standard version of Mandriva Linux on Eee PC netbooks and expect most of…

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I got a chance to play with the Emtec Gdium for a few minutes last night at the ShowStoppers event in Vegas. And I have to say, it’s a nice looking little netbook with a unique design and a unique operating system. It’s launching first in Europe, and should be available in the US sometime around the second quarter of…

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Mandriva 2009 was released a few days ago, and I just finished installing it on my Asus Eee PC 1000H. The latest version of this open source operating system comes with KDE 4.1, and up to date software including OpenOffice 3.0 (although for some reason it includes GIMP 2.4.7, even though GIMP 2.6.1 was released a week or two ago…

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For the last few days I’ve been puzzled by a press release announcing that Mandriva had launched a new version of its Linux distribution specifically tailored for netbooks. Puzzled because for the life of me, I couldn’t find a download link. But after doing a little more digging (and waiting for Mandriva to post a more thorough release on its…

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The current crop of Eee PC killers all look an awful lot like, well, Eee PCs. They have Intel Atom processors, sizeable hard drives or solid state disks, and 9 to 10 inch displays. At first glance, the Emtec Gdium looks just like all the rest. But there are two major things that set it apart. First, it uses a…

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The next full release of Debian Linux will include full support for early Asus Eee PC models including the Eee PC 701 and Eee PC 900. That means ethernet and wireless should work without any patches. The DebianEeePC team has also been releasing patches for other Eee PC models like there’s no tomorrow. You can now find ethernet drivers for…

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The folks behind Mandriva Linux already added support for the Eee PC 700/701 series to their 2008.1 release which was released in April. That means you can install Mandriva on an Eee PC from a CD or from a flash drive and it will work out of the box, no modifications necessary. That means the Fn keys, the WiFi, and…

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