The company behind the SUSE Linux distribution has set up a research and development team to coordinate with Taiwanese netbook vendors. While Ubuntu Linux and Linpus Linux Lite get a lot of attention for their work with netbook makers, SUSE is a popular distribution among enterprise users looking for corporate support for their Linux powered computers.
HP and MSI have already shipped some netbooks with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop preloaded. It’s possible Novell’s new initiative could lead more computer makers to adopt the software.
The goal is to improve driver support and design new human machine interface elements. Novell is expected to work with Acer, asus, MSI, and other Taiwanese netbook vendors and could show some mini-laptops from these companies running SUSE at the Computex trade show in Taipei in June.
via Asus Eee PC Hacks
Smart move. Hit the manufacturers where they live. Granted, most people still want windows, and probably always will, especially with windows 7 apparently being a real player in the low powered PC market.
But alternatives are always nice, and I’m all for distros that work better out of the box.
Best news I’ve heard all day! Finally we may get a mainstream distro that works properly out of the box.