Everex was one of the first companies to offer a netbook in the US. When Everex introduced its first Cloudbook the only other low cost mini-laptop on the market was the Asus Eee PC 701. And a lot of people were excited about the Everex Cloudbook because it ran a version of Ubuntu Linux.

The big news in the Linux realm for the past few months has been Dell's introduction of Ubuntu-preinstalled computers. Dell's not the only game in town, though -- there are also some Lenovo machines that are certified to work with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop. You don't need assurances and certifications to get a good laptop system that will work with Linux, though.

Lenovo seems to have a love/hate relationship with Linux. Last year, it began offering its high-end T60p ThinkPad laptop with SLED 10 (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop). This year, the company is releasing its newest high-end laptop, the T61p ThinkPad, and once more, while it runs desktop Linux, the company isn't overly eager to let the world know about it.

Last week, Lenovo competitive analyst Matt Kohut wrote a blog entry about Linux on laptops. The blog entry, which included extensive criticism of Linux's laptop support, explains why Linux "just isn't ready" for the laptop, and provides insight into some of the challenges faced by OEMs that support Linux.

ThinkPad customers will soon have a new configuration option, as Lenovo and Novell have announced that the popular laptops will begin shipping with SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED) preinstalled.

Acer, the world’s third largest computer seller, said today that it will offer a new, low-cost laptop targeted primarily at emerging markets. Little is known about the model aside from the fact that will have a 7- or 9-inch display, cost about $470, and ship sometime in the second or third quarter. The specs and price would put it in direct competition with other low-cost models such as the Asus Eee PC and the Everex CloudBook, and to a lesser extent OLPC’s XO laptop.

Dell, HP and Lenovo have promised to push chipset vendors to make open source drivers for Linux.

Our handy guide to the best and latest low-cost notebook computers from Acer, Compaq, Dell, Everex, Gateway, HP, Lenovo, and Toshiba.

More laptop computers preloaded with Ubuntu Linux are coming from Dell Inc. in response to demand from potential customers around the world.