A friend loaded linux onto my eMachine netbook. Unfortunately the touch pad and WiFi refuse to work. He loaded it into a 40gb partition leaving 120gb unusable so it would probably make sense to start all over again. I only need basic txt software, pics and internet to work so I am not looking for state of the art. Just something that will work, is not too difficult to set up and preferably can be loaded from a pen drive (memory stick). Any suggestions? The "distro" as I understand it is Kubuntu. Not sure what version but I will have a look later.

What distro and version did he install? ... I wouldn't expect that many hardware issues from a current release

Try using Unetbootin to create a usb startup drive for any of the the linux distros that are supported there: http://unetbootin.sourceforge.net/
This will let you boot from the usb stick and install the distro that you want and to partition the hard drive according to your needs.

as kbp asked, what distro is installed? That makes a big difference.

It has kubuntu installed. Not sure what version but of course I can check this if need be. Regards kb

kubuntu, not sure what version but can check of course.

Go to the distrowatch web site. It has a listing of the 100 most popular distributions of Linux (along with other information) with links to each. Anything in the top 10 or 20 would probably be good. Many of the distributions have information on hardware requirements you can use to compare to your hardware.

I'd agree with the above members suggestions to use unetbootin if you want to install from usb.

To check what version of Kubuntu, or any of the Ubuntu family that you may be running (Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Ubuntu, etc), simply open a terminal and run this command:
It will report back with the version you are running.