coreboot support for netbooks has come back up again.
The VIA vx700 and vx800 chipsets have recently become popular in many netbook designs. Most of these netbooks are being produced by Quanta for several different OEM's.
VIA has recently released open documentation for the vx700 and vx800 chipsets at the VIA Download Portal: http://linux.via.com.tw/support/downloadFiles.action
and open documentation for the latest Unichrome graphics controllers: http://www.x.org/docs/via/
VIA has also released a binary unichrome driver for ubuntu 8.04 and 8.10
VIA is currently developing coreboot support for the vx800 chipset. Release should be along very soon!
openChrome support is also in the works for many new chipsets including the vx700 and vx800: http://www.openchrome.org/
The openChrome developers can also use lots of help. irc.freenode.net #unichrome
The remaining issue with supporting these and other similar netbooks is open firmware support for the Embedded Controller (EC). The most common EC's in these netbooks are the KB9110 or KB3886 from ENE Technology. The ENE EC's are 8051 based and are used to support keyboard scan, lid open/closed, battery charging, power management, etc.
There are also several AMD 690/600 laptops still available that may be candidates as well.
Let see what we can do to get this working!
For a list of netbook candidates and progress updates: http://www.coreboot.org/Laptop
-Bari