But these are early days in the campaign dubbed by the French military Operation Serval.

CNN: Six reasons events in Mali matter

In a statement earlier, Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian confirmed that 3, 700 French troops were engaged in Operation Serval, 2, 500 of them on Malian soil.

BBC: Mali: French-led soldiers 'in control of Gao'

France has about 3, 150 troops now involved in the operation code-named Operation Serval in Mali, all but 1, 000 of whom are currently deployed in the former French colony.

NPR: US Begins Transporting French Troops To Mali

The open-source machine-maker has made Ubuntu PCs before, like the Gazelle and Serval laptops and the recent Sable Complete all-in-one, but none come close to the Bonobo Extreme in terms of speed and performance.

ENGADGET: System76 reveals Bonobo Extreme, a 17.3-inch Ubuntu-powered gaming laptop

The serval is an agile desert cat.

CNN: Six reasons events in Mali matter