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It is being reported on several excellent blogs such as Linux Loop and Asus Eee Hacks (one of my personal favorites) that work is well under way to officially replace the default Xandros Linux distro pre-installed on Linux based Asus Eees with a specially designed version of Debian. Apparently Asus enginners and the Debian community are cooperating closely, with Debian designers focused on customizing and simplifying the application installation process. They seem to be striving to preserve the OS’s flexibility for power users while making the entire process more user friendly for people who don’t want to or can’t wade through Linux code to perform basic tasks like installing a different web browser.

As someone who has been deeply disappointed and frustrated by Xandros on my Eee (see an upcoming rant post on the subject), this sounds like a very positive development for both the Eee and the Linux community. There are lots of different alternate Linux distros now available in the community, but for most users, the preinstalled version is all they will see. If it doesn’t work for them, they will go back to Windows. The Eee line of products (and all UMPCs, really) still seem to me a perfect device for making Linux at least a little more accessible to the general public, but Xandros is absolutely the wrong distro for it. No timetable for the changeover, and no confirmation from Asus.

Read the originally news at DistroWatch.

Zealot (446 Posts) - Website | Twitter | Facebook

By day a department manager and writer for a major network device vendor...by night Zealot stalks the mean magnetic streets, striking fear into the hearts of bandwidth abusers and theme park mascots. Zealot has been involved with mobile devices for more than a decade now, starting off with dumb phones, moving to PDAs and then to smartphones, notebooks and netbooks with the odd PMP thrown in. Most of his mobile time currently is spent on a Treo Pro, Zune HD, Thinkpad T61, Gigabyte M912M or a Hackintoshed Compaq Mini 704. He proudly groks the Geek community and considers himself a Neo Maxi Zune Dweebie (thanks Will Wheaton!).