UMPCPortal has posted a good video demo showing Linpus Lite, a mobile focused Linux based OS, running on the Q1 Ultra. The video shows a what appears to be an OS that is pretty well designed for touch screen use. The main screen has tabs across the top which gives you different categories to sort applications into. Inside each tab applications are represented with an icon and some text in a large button (as seen in the image above) that should be easily pressed with a finger.

At the moment the Q1U’s touchscreen is recognized and functioning, however it would appear as though Linpus has the touchscreen calibration adjusted for an 800×480 device. This of course means that touches are interpreted in the wrong place of the Q1U’s 1024×600 screen. Steve from UMPCPortal has also said that the WiFi card is not detected, but he had no trouble getting online through a wired LAN connection. I believe that Linpus is in a somewhat early stage so you can expect hardware support to increase in the future. Linpus is designed as a starting point for OEMs to make the OS designed for their UMPC.

Hopefully what won’t happen is that Linpus will fall prey to the same issue that I’ve seen on OS2008, the OS that runs the N800 or N810. That issue is that the upper part of the UI is well designed for touch navigation, but beyond that most applications are very basic with tiny scroll bars and drop down lists that aren’t well designed for touch navigation at all. If you watch the video demo, it doesn’t appear as though Firefox and some of the other included applications are much different from their desktop counterparts, which leads me to believe that the preceding might be the case (at lease for now).