MSI and Novell will soon ship MSI's new Intel Atom N450-based MSI U135 netbook with SUSE Moblin Linux v2.1. Loaded with the netbook-focused version of SUSE, the U135 offers up to 2GB RAM, a 10.1-inch screen, WiFi, Bluetooth, and 160GB or 250GB hard drives, says MSI.

Moblin.org shipped the final version of the Moblin v2.0 netbook distribution, and released early-preview versions of a Moblin app store, Moblin installer, and Moblin v2.1. Meanwhile, Moblin v2.0 is now available on Dell's Mini 10v netbook, as part of an "Ubuntu Moblin Remix Developer Edition" option.

The first netbook preinstalled with Moblin v2 for Netbooks will likely launch next week, possibly at Intel's Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco. Following that, the Moblin Project will release the first milestone release of the Moblin v2 Linux distribution, which began beta testing in May.

What do you get when you mix Novell's SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop) 11 with the Linux Foundation's Moblin 2.1 netbook desktop? A lightweight Linux desktop that's trying to snag the netbook desktop market before Google's Chrome OS runs away with it later this year.

The first netbook pre-installed with Moblin v2 operating system technology may reach market in October. A report suggests that Asus will offer Moblin v2 technology preinstalled on its "Seashell" netbook.

Over the last 12 months, netbook and mobile Linux has made massive advances in features and install base. This is primarily thanks to two netbook distributions - Moblin and Canonical's Ubuntu Netbook Remix (UNR).

I knew there was going to be big Linux netbook news coming out of the Computex trade show in Taipei, Taiwan, but I didn't know it was going to be this big. Sources at Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, tell me that Canonical will be announcing new partnerships with Intel, SanDisk, and RealNetworks.

A new Linux netbook based on Moblin will be introduced this week, and it may represent a new way that the Linux community is approaching the mass market.

Intel hosted their developer conference this week in San Francisco (Intel Developer Forum) where several new announcements were made, with Linux being involved in some of these announcements. It was revealed that Dell will begin shipping Ubuntu Moblin Netbook Remix on one of their Atom-powered netbooks, Moblin 2.0 was released, and there was a snapshot of Moblin 2.1 was released.