Debian Linux-Intel Atom Processor (Menlow) Support
Purpose: To show resources which might be useful if you are looking to support Debian on Intel’s Atom processor.
Sometime back Intel announced it’s new low power Atom processor. These processors are specifically designed for UMPC (Ultra Mobile PC), MID (Mobile Internet Devices) and other hand-held devices.
I started looking around the Internet to see if there is any kind of support for Linux with regards to the Atom processor. It looks like Ubuntu community has lots of activities going on with regards to this. For example, they have developed a project called Ubuntu Net Remix (UNR), which is derived from Ubuntu 8.04 to work with small screen devices. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu says:
“Ubuntu Netbook Remix is built to provide a superb user experience leveraging Ubuntu’s reputation for delivering operating systems that ‘just work’ in the desktop environment. The remix is based on the standard Ubuntu Desktop Edition but with a launcher that allows users to get on-line more quickly and have faster access to their favourite applications.”
I was specifically interested in finding out support for Debian. Upon not finding anything related to Debian & Intel Atom processor I decided to shoot an email to the Debian Developer mailing list. There has been a pretty interesting discussion since then with regards to this topic. You can view the entire discussion thread here.
It seems that somebody within the Debian community has started a project called DebianEeePC with a goal to support Debian on Intel Atom processor. Here is a good summarization by one of the members on the Debian mailing list.
Finally Intel has started a Mobile and Internet project called Moblin to develop software optimized for Intel Atom processor to take advantage of the “low power, low footprint, high performance, wireless, and graphics to deliver a full Internet experience”.
Moreover you can see my del.icio.us links on this topic that I have found so far over the Internet.
Please check back again or bookmark this link to find out more upto-date information on this topic.
As usual, please leave a comment/feedback below, if you have any.
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Tags: atom, Debian, intel, low power, lpia, menlow, moblin, Net, remix, ubuntu
August 13th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
I found your site on technorati and read a few of your other posts. Keep up the good work. I just added your RSS feed to my Google News Reader. Looking forward to reading more from you down the road!