Internetling

Who could have, just a year ago, predicted the dramatic changes in the netbook operating system world? The release of Windows 7 and cheaper hardware launched an exciting race for users between Linux and Windows, forcing both to take it up a notch, especially in the aesthetics department. This year might be the year of cloud operating systems, but at the same time more powerful netbooks will enable us to use more advanced features. There are a few distributions you might remember from last year’s article. However, even the ones that stayed in the top 5 have gone through some heavy face-lifting. Hardware support is unfortunately still a major problem in the Linux world, that is why it played a major role in the ranking. My testing machine was an Asus Eee PC 1101 HA, which comes with a surprisingly problematic piece of hardware, the Intel Poulsbo GMA 500 graphics chip, that makes using advanced graphics effects a challenge, if you aren’t using Windows.

So, without further ado, here are the top 5 netbook Linux distributions for 2010!

Ubuntu Netbook Remix – UNR

We can now confidently say Ubuntu is the de-facto Linux distribution and even the netbook respin of the 9.10 “Karmic Koala” release is no exception. The loading and login screens are simply gorgeous. The Maximus window manager  works pretty well on small monitors and neatly organizes your workspace. Despite the optimizations you should not expect stellar performance, though. My personal recommendation is to remove the default window manager:

$sudo apt-get remove ubuntu-netbook-remix ubuntu-netbook-remix-default-settings maximus

and switch back to GNOME, or install something faster like Xfce. On my machine I still had to setup the Poulsbo chip using a script and the wireless card worked much batter after using a windows driver through ndiswrapper. Not much to add, really. Otherwise, what you are getting is a heavily optimized version of Karmic Koala. And since we’re talking about the most successful Linux distro, there is a high chance that you will like it.

Jolicloud

By now you have probably gotten used to the new developer trends and are not afraid of trying out a product still in beta. Heck, I ran it when it was still an invite-only alpha. Jolicloud is web-centric and divided into three parts: the Linux kernel, the wonderful Jolicloud desktop and the web service, My Jolicloud. Installing applications is very easy and Jolicloud provides an aesthetically pleasing and well-integrated way of using online services just like normal desktop apps. This is not an operating system for people who like to dive into the details, but for those who are interested in stying connected, sharing and doing some basic work on the internet. You can add friends to your Jolicloud network, share and recommend applications. Your desktop experience will seamlessly switch from the cloud to your local environment. Another good thing about Jolicloud is the excellent out-of-the-box hardware support. If you use a netbook for relatively simple tasks, but are tired of waiting for Windows 7 to load or are having problems with a traditional Linux distributions, you should definitely give Jolicloud a try.

Mandriva 2010 (GNOME)

Even though Mandriva has been losing market share every year, it remains one of the best netbook distributions out there. The developers keep updating every release with all the drivers needed for a great out-of-the-box experience. This is one of the only distributions that will work without any tweaks needed. My only reason for not using Mandriva is that I am an avid APT user. All in all, Mandriva 2010 is extremely polished and gives you a choice between 4 well-integrated desktop environments, the major two being Gnome and KDE. To my surprise, the Gnome version looks really, really good. Albeit Mandriva’s userbase is not as large as Ubuntu’s, the documentation is well-written and it is really easy to install the distribution on your new system. Choose Mandriva if you need a full-blown Linux distribution, do not have time to tweak your system and can tolerate RPM

xPUD

Penk’s Underbred Linux distribution has been making waves since about a year now. And rightfully so: 10-second boot time is a killer feature for busy people. The xPUD desktop is mind-bogglingly simple and based on Mozilla’s XUL interface. A dumbed-down version of Maximus, if you like. Yes, this is both crazy and awesome. The basic idea of xPUD is that you boot straight into the browser. No real desktop environment, just the browser and you. The distribution is at version 0.9.2  at the time of writing, a Chromium-based version is also in the works, promising more speed (remember, due to Gecko and XUL, you get slower overall performance despite the fast boot; using WebKit could speed things up a bit).

Easy Peasy

Formerly Ubuntu Eee (fixed, thanks Scott!), EasyPeasy is Ubuntu respin tailored for Asus Eee PCs. But since it didn’t work on my EeePC, I’ll have to give it last place. The desktop environment is taken from UNR – the only difference is that the Easy-Peasy version isn’t ugly (where ugly means brown). You could call it the Linux Mint of the netbook operating system world, because the default install includes some proprietary software such as Skype, Adobe Flash and some common codecs to make your life less painful. The project documentation is not very professional. On the other hand, the guides are simple and very useful. I liek the fact that they chose Banshee to be the default music player. Those of you who do not like ext4 should skip this distro, though: as of v1.5, EasyPeasy uses ext4 by default. Due to the fact that the distro is basically Ubuntu, you can solve all your problems using Ubuntu documentation. Yet, aside from the nice theme and some very sound software choices there is no real reason to choose Easy Peasy instead of UNR. Try both and decide by yourself.

(Totally starting a flame-war) Distros I Do NOT recommend:

- Moblin: it is now essentially a dead project because of MeeGo. If you really like Moblin, get Mandriva 2010 and choose the Moblin interface.

- Puppy Linux or TeenPup: You are root by default. Thumbs down.

- Chrome (Chromium) OS: not reliable enough; do not forget it’s a developers’ preview.