Ubuntu netbooks will run all day

Netbooks using the latest ARM processors and capable of running a full working day on a single charge are set to hit the market in the middle of next year.

They will use a specially optimised version of Ubuntu Linux, and will come with the Microsoft-compatible OpenOffice.org suite.

Simon Hickman, Arm's regional mobile computing manager, said he was not a liberty to name vendors but he expects machines running ARM Cortex A8 or A9 processors to appear in the second or third quarter of 2009.

He said they would run for at least eight hours without a charge – a time long targeted by notebook manufacturers, as it is considered to be a working day. Intel-based notebooks claiming all-day working tend to pack extra batteries.

Hickman was speaking after ARM announced that it is working with Canonical, UK commercial sponsor of Linux, to optimise Ubuntu for the ARM platform, mainly on the power management and use of the platform's Neon multimedia processing.

He said there had never before been a full implementation of Linux on the ARM platform. "But we have been working for a long time with Debian, on which Ubuntu is based," he said

The ARM machines will use a variant of Ubuntu 9.4, which is due for release in April.

News of the Ubuntu tie-up broke as Qualcomm announced a 1.5GHz dual-core Snapdragon system-on-a-chip, perhaps the most powerful ARM-based design yet to hit the mainstream.

Comment: Can ARM take Linux to the mobile mainstream?