As soon as I had Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron on my Eee PC, I couldn’t resist trying new interfaces. I had seen the Canonical Netbook Remix on Tombuntu less than a week earlier and did some searching until I found the launchpad site and found that I could add the applets into my current installation!

I added the ppa apt repository and installed everything except the ume-config-netbook, because it is not meant to be used on all systems. The applets are:

  • go-home-applet: a button that when clicked, returns to the main launcher
  • window-picker-applet: a nice window switcher that shows windows opened by the application icon and the title of the current window
  • maximus: forces all windows to open in fullscreen mode while leaving only the top panel
  • human-netbook-them: a nice theme with dark colors
  • ume-launcher: an application launcher that makes it easy to get to applications and fills the easy mode need that Xandros offers

I took a few screenshots of it in action:

Here it is in the internet category with the default appearance.
 Notebook Remix Launcher

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It has a nice popup showing an application is loading.
 Notebook Remix Launcher Loading

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The window picker handles several windows nicely.
 Notebook Remix Window Picker

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Of course the colors, themes, and panels can still be changed.
 Notebook Remix Themed

All I can say is: Well done Canonical. Maybe this will help convince new mini-pc manufactures to choose Ubuntu instead of Xandros…

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