British system-on-chip (SoC) developer Arm said today it will be releasing a version of Ubuntu for netbooks and desktops based on Arm designs. Arm collaborated with Canonical, a sponsor of the open source Linux distribution Ubuntu, on the roll out.

Arm's Ubuntu distribution will support the ArmV7 marchitecture, including CortexA8 and A9 based systems, and will be released in April next year. The release date coincides with the Ubuntu roadmap, which states release 9.04 (dubbed Jaunty Jackalope) will be out by April 23 2009.

Arm designs RISC processors, graphics chips and associated software for mobile devices and handsets. The company claims manufacturers will be able to build new netbooks and gadgets which will allow users to surf the internet for hours and hours, as Arm SoC's are rather power-efficient and won't drain the batteries empty too fast. In other words, smartphones and other handsets running Ubuntu can be expected from the middle of next year onwards.

"The release of a full Ubuntu desktop distribution supporting latest ARM technology will enable rapid growth, with internet everywhere, connected ultra portable devices," said Arm's marketing VP Ian Drew.  X