To be totally sarcastic for a moment, has H-P listened to us [1, 2, 3]? The company is dropping SUSE and it's being covered all over the place although this one minor detail about Novell is mostly left out.

First of all, is this a clearance sale of SUSE-based machines?

In the market for a Netbook? Amazon has the baseline HP 2133 on sale for $299, down from $499. Right away that solves one of the HP's main problems: its high price. Best of all, this is a new unit--not a refurb--and you don't have to deal with any rebates.

It turns out that Business Week was right. Roughly a month ago it claimed that H-P was working on its own custom-built GNU/Linux distribution, much like the Xandros derivative from ASUS. It's worth adding that, according to Shawn Powers of Linux Journal, "I'm sure Asus has their reasons for not allowing a download of the restore ISO. Perhaps they are under some legal obligation to keep it off the digital shelves."

There is no apparent sign in the news of what distribution the new offer is based on. Here are some examples:

1. HP expands mini-notebook line in time for holidays

HP is really going after "digital snackers" with a second model, the HP Mini 100 with MIE (Mobile Internet Experience). This model, available in January at a starting price of $379.99, does away with a traditional operating system in favor of an HP developed Linux platform that is designed for specific applications. You can get e-mail through a Thunderbird client, web browsing through a Mozilla-based browser and access to all your photos, videos and music.

2. HP revs netbooks: Attempts custom Linux OS

Hewlett Packard on Wednesday rolled out a netbook lineup designed to play catch up with Dell, Asus and others. But the real interesting play here is HP’s move to develop a custom Linux operating system for one of its netbooks.

3. HP gets serious about Netbooks

The HP MediaStyle interface is available on the Mini1000 MIE version, which comes with Linux rather than Windows XP like the other two models. MediaStyle sits on top of Linux and is a dashboard that takes users to music, IM, photos, videos, and the Web with one touchpad click, which HP says will shield users from ever having to interact with the open-source OS.

What is it based on anyway? We could not verify this for sure, but it's claimed to be Ubuntu GNU/Linux.

... with the MIE graphical interface:

http://www.crunchgear.com/2008/10/29/hp-breaks-the-netbook-mold-with-the-mini-1000-and-mie-linux-netbook/

I posted this information in the other thread about the new HP Mini. Most likely the MIE interface can be changed to a more conventional desktop such as Gnome, KDE, or XFCE. The real news here is that HP DROPPED SUSE FOR UBUNTU!!! :D

The cited post says: "HP gives you the choice of either Windows XP or an Ubuntu-powered “experience” MIE operating system. This Mobile Internet Experience streamlines most common uses into a custom built homescreen that screams of HP’s Touchsmart interface - that’s a good thing."

This is also good news because it may be another step away from Microsoft 'Linux tax'. ⬆