You might not have seen the announcement that Ubuntu-mobile had a last minute name change to Ubuntu-ultra mobile PC based on the fact it was targeting mobile computers rather than the lower-spec Intel-based MIDs. Oliver Grawert, one of the lead guys on the Ubuntu-ultra mobile PC project, explains on his blog. It was just in time for the release of version 8.10 (AKA Intrepid Ibex) which was went live today.

Before I give you the links to the 8.10 versions (that I’ll be trying out ASAP) though, let me quickly give you an overview of the two distributions…

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Update: I’m currently live on UMPCPortal.com/live testing this out if you fancy seeing it in action.

Update: Live session summary below.

Today, One of the Canonical mobile team members released details of a new distribution based on Ubuntu 8.10 (Intrepid) aimed at ‘MIDs’ with screen sizes from 7-9″

After a simple download and copy to a flash drive the Q1 Ultra booted straight into a live linux session running in RAM and everything seems to work out of the box. Touch, brightness, wifi, BT and more. This is exciting. There’s a full software suite withthe Moblin browser (Firefox + grab and drag), on screen keyboard, Open Office, Pidgin, Thunderbird and of course, through the package manager, a whole lot more. [Video after the break]

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Its a good day for Moblin. Not only will the core be used by Xandros in the Eee PC at some point in the future but a competing, Canonical-led distro called the Netbook Remix has been launched. As with their Ubuntu Mobile distribution for small-screen MIDs, it will be made available to others that wish to use it in their systems and won’t really be an end-user software package but i’m sure we’ll see it picked up and modded onto all sorts of netbooks before long. Some OEMs have already picked it up for devices to be released later in the year.

Full story, some more images and the full press release over at Engadget.