I've been thinking about building my own very small machine around the dual-core Intel Atom processor with Nvidia graphics. Yes, I know that Nvidia is freedom-hating and all, but I think that for the small form factors such as Mini-ITX, Intel and Nvidia are heading in the right direction when it comes to compactness, power consumption and graphical sophistication.

We have tested a few interesting Intel Atom-powered nettop computers lately from the ASRock ION 330HT-BD that bears a Blu-ray drive and an Intel Atom 330 CPU with NVIDIA ION graphics to the ASUS Eee Top that packaged the entire system within a touch-screen monitor.

Adam Williamson has made available a repository containing a full set of packages to install the driver for Intel Poulsbo (GMA500) graphics chipsets (found in the Dell Mini 12, Sony Vaio P and other systems) on Fedora 11 (i586 only, not working for x86_64).

Fedora 12 released with lot of new features. Fedora 12 is aiming intel's next generation processor Atom.Networ manager made easier access to both normal LAN connections and mobile broadband . Enhanced Wi-Fi Support with built in Broadcom firmware.

This week, Canonical announced a reworked version of Ubuntu at the Computex trade show in Taiwan. The new Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR) is specifically built for new so-called "netbooks" -- mini laptops with small screens geared towards Web browsing and built on Intel's new, low-power micro-architecture called Atom.

Late last month we published our preview of the ASUS Eee PC 901 and we shared our plans for a number of benchmarks using this netbook with Intel's Atom processor. Following our Linux desktop encryption benchmarks of the ASUS Eee PC 901 and Intel Atom N270 CPU we have a performance comparison of Xandros, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mandriva on this low-cost netbook PC.

Canonical has announced the Ubuntu Netbook Remix, a version of Ubuntu designed for small computers with Intel's new Atom processor. These include: netbooks; (small laptops such as the Asus Eee PC), and MIDs; (small handheld computers).

By the time Ubuntu 10.04 LTS rolls around next April, Canonical is interested in seeing Ubuntu boot on an Intel Atom netbook (specifically the Dell Mini 9) in less than ten seconds. These incredibly fast boot time goals even led Canonical to decide against investing more time in enhancing the boot experience with Red Hat's Plymouth.

Until recently, small form factor computers were mostly restricted to people who were able to build their own system. Maybe you could buy a Micro-ATX computer from Dell or HP, or something small from Shuttle, but if you wanted a Mini-ITX (or smaller) system, you were on your own.