Reports of the Linux netbook's death at the hands of Microsoft have been greatly exaggerated. A flood of Linux netbook news will be made next week at the Computex trade show in Taiwan.

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.

As previously announced at this years Computex trade show, Taiwanese firm Acer has now officially released its first Aspire One netbook running Google's open source Android mobile operating system (OS).

Scoffers have been dismissing the Linux netbook, but I've been saying all along that the Linux netbook was alive and well and that Google would make its desktop Linux move with Android this year. But, I sure didn't see everyone this side of Microsoft jumping in the Linux netbook pool for the summer. Well, you know what? That's exactly what they're doing.

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.

Linux distributions designed specifically for use on netbooks is nothing new. Canonical produces the Ubuntu Netbook Remix version of Ubuntu for these small-sized devices, Intel has their Moblin distribution that is very fast and offers an attractive interface, gOS has their own netbook distribution, Linpus has QuickOS, and the list goes on.

Installing Ubuntu Linux on a Netbook: Do you want to install Ubuntu or any other Linux distribution on your netbook?

For those who do not know, Kubuntu Netbook Edition made it to the top of our list of “Best Netbook Linux Distro” and why not, it has an innovative approach of how an operating system should be customized for a netbook, to make lives easier for users like you and me.

I love my little “netbook” laptop computer, barely the size of a small hardcover book. But running programs on it turned out to be more frustrating than I’d imagined. Why not take Windows off my netbook and replace it with Linux, just like I’d done with the old laptop?