After Dell broke the ice for pre-installing Linux on desktops and netbooks in 2007, the other major OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) reluctantly tried it out, and, in some cases, like Lenovo, backed right back out of the Linux desktop market again. As 2010 dawns though, Lenovo and HP are both back in the pre-installed desktop Linux game.

Reports that the Linux netbook is dead or dying are incorrect, at least globally, according to an analyst firm.

If bookmarking a site in your web browser sounds like rocket science to you then you're probably the perfect candidate for Jolicloud, which dumps a bunch of shortcuts for social networking sites and such onto your netbook screen.

If you have been having trouble finding Linux on a netbook, you can stop wondering why. I suspected it was being monopoly-crushed. Here's the smoking gun, at last, thanks to Dana Blankenhorn of ZDNet, who attended Comdex and asked the right question...

When it launched the netbook phenomenon a couple of years ago, the most noticeable thing about the Asus EEE PC, apart from its size, was that it typically ran Linux. Suddenly everyone was predicting the demise of Windows and the rise of Linux.