During OSCON last week, I met with Canonical's Pete Goodall to discuss the company's strategy for Ubuntu in the mobile market. Although he could not tell me any specifics regarding plans for upcoming Ubuntu-based subnotebook products, the word is that good stuff is coming soon. He seemed very enthusiastic about emerging opportunities for Ubuntu in the mobile space.

He says that touchscreens will become more prevalent in next-generation devices and he expressed interest in experimenting with new approaches to finger-friendly user interface design. The innovative things that Canonical is doing now with the mobile launcher are just the beginning.

Canonical's move to make Ubuntu a success on subnotebooks could have some intriguing incidental advantages. Preinstallation opportunities will offer a very powerful way to increase the distribution's visibility, which could encourage broader adoption on the desktop. It's also worth noting that some of the performance, memory, and boot optimizations that are being implemented to improve the mobile experience will help improve the desktop experience as well.

One of the most compelling advantages of the Linux subnotebook trend is that it gives major OEMs a reason to care about Linux hardware compatibility. They can, in turn, apply pressure to the component makers to ensure that proper open-source drivers can be implemented. The process of educating vendors will take a long time, but Goodall and others who are working in the mobile space say that some vendors are already starting to get the right idea.

Goodall demonstrated the Ubuntu Netbook Remix on an Atom-based subnotebook that he had brought with him to the event. The device was an Acer Aspire One on which he had installed Ubuntu after erasing Acer's own Fedora-based Linpus Linux distribution. Canonical has no plans to ship Ubuntu on Aspire One laptops; Goodall just bought it so that he could use it as a test environment. Even though the software hadn't been tailored to that specific device, it ran remarkably well. This is a testament to Ubuntu's excellent hardware compatibility and the consistent nature of Atom-based subnotebook components.

On the Aspire's 8.9 inch 1024x600 LCD, the Ubuntu mobile launcher looked crisp and elegant. He demonstrated several of the hardware features and showed me that the built-in webcam worked perfectly with Cheese, the GNOME webcam application. Seeing Ubuntu in action on the Aspire has cranked up my enthusiasm for Linux-based subnotebooks. I've gotten a tremendous amount of use out of my Eee in the past year, and I'm looking forward to replacing it when the next generation of Atom-based devices hits the market.