In the laptop world, everybody is going smaller into "netbook" territory. Linux, of course, was more than ready for it because it already had super-small-footprint distributions ready to rock.

Some distributions are available for purchase direct-on-stick such as the Linutop shown right. Linutop is also specifically designed for the Intel Atom-based Asus EeePC. The OS is Ubuntu 8.04 based so it should run quite snappy.

Linutop doesn’t just make sticks but also what is now called a "computing appliance" (i.e. a small brick-like computer box).

Read more about the Linutop and see what their Ubuntu-on-stick has in store here.

And for those wondering (or haven’t read my other Linux-on-stick articles), no you don’t have to buy any brand-specific thing to put a full distro of Linux on a USB stick obviously – but it’s nice that there are others wiling to "do the dirty work", so to speak.