It wasn't even three-years ago that Asus took the concept of a cheap, small notebook and turned it into a revolution: the Linux-powered netbook. But, now, without any fanfare, Asus seems to have closed down its Linux lines at least in the United States.

Not a full day after news comes from Asus that they’ve got some larger screen EeePCs in works do pics of one show up online. jkkmobile hits us up with some pictures of this new model. No word on release date yet.

A YEAR ago, ASUS told the press that it was "closely tied up with Microsoft.” This happened just months after ASUS had expressed its future commitment to the GNU/Linux platform and recently we learned that Microsoft probably offered kickbacks to ASUS. It is almost confirmed now. The effect on ASUS appears to be devastating as liaising with Microsoft did not really pay off.

Asus has named the upcoming additions to its Eee PC family of low-cost computers, soon to be augmented with a small form-factor desktop machine, an all-in-one system and a TV.

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).

I broke down and purchased the Asus Eee PC (above left) from a retail superstore today. At $299 for the older 2GB model, it seemed like a steal. And compared to my MacBook Pro (above right), the Eee PC is super small. Here are some initial thoughts about the Eee PC, including the most important one of all: The Eee PC shatters the myth that consumers can’t use Linux.

The TechRepublic Linux and Open Source blog has been talking about the ASUS Eee 901 ultra-portable personal computer lately because it ships with a version of Linux. The general consensus seems to be that the Eee is good for some specific tasks, but there are limitations. However, the real question is what the heck is inside one of these small devices.

The original Asus Eee PC was the spark that ignited a forest fire of sub-mini notebooks from second tier providers to high end players like HP and Dell. Asus did so well with the original Eee PC they decided to release other models with similar design goals but minor tweaks of the hardware specs.

We recently acquired an ASUS Eee PC (if you want to know more about it, a lot of reviews are available on internet). The first thing we did when we put our hands at the ASUS Eee PC was to test its security. The ASUS Eee PC comes with a customized version of Xandros operating system installed, and some other bundled software like Mozilla Firefox, Pidgin, Skype and OpenOffice.org.