Developing for Linux netbooks
By David M Williams
Sunday, 06 July 2008 19:26
The ASUS Eee started a revolution: it was an incredible price breakthrough, delivering a fully functional and highly portable subnotebook at a remarkable low price. The free and open source Linux operating system helped the price by avoiding any software licensing fees whatsoever, along with its rich collection of fully functional applications, tools and games.
For the Eee ASUS used their own custom version of Xandros Linux. Meanwhile, this year the Elonex ONE subnotebook has been released in the United Kingdom, similarly using a Linux variation to power its offering without a cost being passed on to the consumer. Now it’s Acer’s turn to get some action with the release of their pint-sized Intel Atom-powered Aspire One. Once more, Acer have appropriated Linux, in this case the Linpus Linux Lite distribution.
The Linux pricing model (ie: free!) and its versatility across a range of hardware are key factors driving this remarkable new ultraportable market. A new term has even been dubbed, namely “netbooks” – low cost, low powered highly portable notebook computers which primarily serve to give Internet connectivity wherever one may be – and this could not have evolved without the ability of Linux to totally smash each and every cost associated with bundling software. There is no reason to think this current popularity of netbooks will abate, and every reason to fully expect all future netbooks will continue to run Linux variants – especially when Ubuntu finally release their Netbook remix edition for Atom-powered devices like the Acer Aspire One.
The challenge for software developers comes in adapting to the growing numbers of these machines. Sure, you can run any Linux app on them as is – it’s not like the Windows Mobile situation where programs have to be specially built and compiled for Windows Mobile devices. They may run Microsoft Windows, but it’s not the same operating system at heart (or even the same type of processor.) By contrast, Linux netbooks still use the exact same underlying kernel and graphical subsystem as their traditional computer counterparts.
Yet, despite this, the screen resolutions on these devices are often somewhat whacky. The Aspire One, for instance, operates at 1024x600 pixels. That’s pretty good for a netbook but is short of the taller, more conventional, 1024x768 you’d expect on a regular desktop. Similarly, the original Eee offered 800x480 pixels; again, shy of the more usual 800x600. The Elonex ONE also operates at 800x480 and the 2nd-generation Eee 901 models deliver 1024x600. You can see a pattern emerging here: while giving reasonable width, the netbook displays are consistently squatter than the traditional resolutions developers work with.
That’s not all. Please do read on.
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