I am a college student currently looking for a new laptop. I have a Mac that I love, but I have had it for almost five years and it has become slow to the point of being almost unusable. I would love to get another Mac, but don't want to spend the money and I am intrigued by the prospect of getting a netbook with Linux.

Can someone suggest a netbook that would be able to handle my needs as well as having a form of Linux that is easy to adapt to? All I would use it for would be for writing papers, listening to music and watching movies occasionally from an external hard drive, streaming videos online, using email, Firefox, and AIM.

My main concern is price so the cheaper the better. Thanks in advance.

Most of the netbooks seem to be pretty well supported. The Dell mini 9 comes with a modified version of Ubuntu:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...ll_mini9&num=1
The Samsung NC10 is also reviewed by Phoronix:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...ung_nc10&num=1
The Asus eee series and the Acer Aspire One netbooks are supposed to work well. They are both available with linux preinstalled. The eee uses a modified Xandros; and the AAO uses a modified Linpus. There is a lot of documentation on the eee and the AAO, including dedicated user forums that have a lot of info on installing various distros on these netbooks:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag..._eee_901&num=1
http://www.eeeuser.com/
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/AspireOne
http://www.aspireoneuser.com/
A quick search of this forum will turn up threads on just about any netbook you may be interested in. There is a section of LQ forums devoted to laptops and netbooks.

And welcome to the LQ forums!

Thanks for the ideas and the welcome to the forum. I had been looking at the eee series and the aspire one but the Samsung was new to me. Is it true that the NC10 isn't sold with Linux still? One of the main reasons I'm interested in Linux (besides being curious for a while and seeing how easy it can be these days while maintaining customization) is saving money on Windows as well as applications and security programs. I don't really feel like spending the money for windows pre-loaded on principle.

In case anybody else has ideas I figured I should specify what I'm looking for some more. Ideally around a 10 inch screen with an HDD over 100GB and 1GB of RAM with Linux pre-loaded. Battery life is very important to me as well so I'd assume it would be 6-cell. This seems like it should be easy to find, but for some reason or other I just can't seem to find anything for sale that meets all these needs at a good price. Any tips are appreciated.

Yes, as far as I know the Samsung NC10 is only available with Windows XP.

As far as I know, all the netbooks that come with linux preinstalled come with the solid state hard drives that are in the 8-20GB range or so. The only netbooks I have seen that have hard drives >100GB are the ones that come with XP. I can understand not wanting to pay for XP if you are not going to use it; but if you want a netbook with a large hard drive you may have no other choice.
You can always buy a netbook with XP and install linux yourself, either as a dual boot with XP or with linux only. There are linux distros that are specifically designed for netbooks, like Ubuntu netbook remix, Easy-Peasy, and the new Moblin, which looks promising:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?pag...in_v2_ui&num=1
Of course, you likely will be able to install any distro you want on your chosen netbook.

My random sampling of the netbook trends suggests that there is now little or no difference in the price with Linux or with Windows XP. There is still the principle thing.........

In the UK the XP ones seem more expensive than the same spec machine with linux.

http://www.play.com/HOME/HOME/6-/Sea...searchsource=0

I just found out that Sylvania makes a netbook that comes with Ubuntu Netbook Remix preinstalled. It has an 80GB hard drive:
http://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-GNET2...3299416&sr=1-4
They also make a netbook with a bigger screen and a a 160GB hard drive that comes with Windows XP, and at a higher price:
http://www.amazon.com/Sylvania-GNET3...3299416&sr=1-2
http://www.digitalgadgets.com/products.php?p=meso
The current edition of Distrowatch Weekly features the author installing Mandriva 2009.1 on the Sylvania netbook:
http://distrowatch.com/weekly.php?is...090525#feature

thanks so much for all the information. i'm looking pretty closely at the samsung nc10 and n110 as well as the sylvania. i think i will just end up dual booting with xp. that way i can do something in windows if i'm really having a problem adjusting to linux.

I just found 2 more netbooks that meet all of your requirements, including a large hard drive. The first one is the System76 netbook that comes with Ubuntu Netbook Remix preinstalled:
http://system76.com/product_info.php...products_id=92
System 76 is a company that builds computers with Ubuntu preinstalled.
Linux Certified also makes a netbook that meets your needs:
http://linuxcertified.com/linux-netbook-lc10e.html