With competition in the netbook sector increasing rapidly, Foresight Linux has released a mobile edition of its distribution built for the new generation of ultra portables.

Foresight Mobile Edition 1.0 incorporates Ubuntu’s Netbook remix desktop interface which is designed for the smaller screens most common on netbook hardware such as as the Asus EEE PC and the Acer Aspire One.

Foresight Linux Mobile Edition also includes the Conary package management system that was developed by rPath and used in rPath Linux.

The default desktop for Foresight Linux ME is Gnome and it includes applications such the F-Spot photo manager, Firefox web browser, Pidgin instant messenger, Banshee media player and the Gnome Movie Player.

To date Foresight Linux ME has been tested in the Asus EEE PC and the Intel Classmate. While it apparently works well on both, the Asus EEE PC does have a couple of known bugs with powering off correctly and resuming wireless networking.

The power issue is a problem that plagued the Ubuntu EEE distribution initially as well but is relatively easy to fix. The latest release of Ubuntu EEE (8.04.1) appears to include this fix in the default.

Foresight Linux ME can be downloaded now.