Canonical and ASUS have formed a partnership that would enable the hardware vendor to equip a couple of its laptops with the Ubuntu operating system.

ASUS is now providing the X201E and 1015E laptops with Ubuntu preinstalled in an effort to penetrate the education market.

“As Ubuntu, and all the software bundled on it is free, there’s no licence fees in the purchase price which significantly reduces cost. This is perfect for students and institutions, both of whose finances can be hard pressed.”

“Productivity applications are taken care of by LibreOffice. Familiar feeling, they offer all the functionality students and staff need and are fully compatible with existing files from the leading proprietary alternative. There are also bundled free applications for email and web browsing,” reads the official announcement on Ubuntu’s website.

The two laptops are not exactly powerhouses and are aimed at productivity and maybe multimedia content. The ASUS 1015E laptop features an Intel Celeron 847 1.1 GHz processor, 2 GB DDR3 Memory, a 320 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive, and a 10.1-inch screen.

The other model, which is currently out of stock, ASUS X201E, is a little bit more powerful, but not by much: Intel Celeron 847 (1.1GHz) Sandy Bridge processor, 4 GB DDR3, 320 GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive, an 11.6-inch screen, and Intel GMA HD graphics solution.

“Beyond the basics thousands of other free, open-source applications are available to meet more specific needs from image processing and 3D animation to anti-virus or accounting.”

“We know that effective personal computing is vital to students and Institutions, so it’s exciting for us to work with our partners to bring these low-cost, high-performance packages into the education sector,” it is also stated in the announcement.

Canonical’s announcement sends to a couple of Amazon pages, but if you’re interested in these products, then you should know that they are available in a number of other stores.