I've looked into quite a few and tbh I really need something I could pick right off and start doing work with. since running win7 on a netbook is just painful.
I am getting PingEee now and just wondering what you may suggest for a beginner on a netbook.
Many thanks.

Hi,

I've installed Peppermint OS on a couple of netbooks for friends and colleagues and they're very pleased with it. It boots very fast and has all you need to get started on board. Give it a try, I'm sure you'll like it.

PS: Sorry, didn't notice it's your first post here.

Welcome to LinuxQuestions. Looking forward to your participation in the forums.

Kind regards,

Eric

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Hello himegoto, welcome to LQ,

Ubuntu comes with a "Netbook-Edition", the advantage is that the default install-method is via USB (because netbooks lack a DVD-drive) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Netbook_Edition

Also Mint is known as a good distribution for beginners and works well out of the box.

For better advice I'd recommend that you tell us more about the hardware-specifications of your netbook.

Markus

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Canonical have now merged their Netbook Edition with their Ubuntu Standard Edition running Unity Desktop.
Still a good option for a newbie though!
I run Crunchbang on my Acer Aspire One ZG5 (AOA110L) It runs well and is very stable.

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Thanks for the warm welcome and tips.
my netbook is from around this time last year, a samsung NF210 running at n550 1.5g cpu and a 1gb ram. I placed an order on a 2gb ram and expecting it in the coming week.
at this point I am really looking for a fast substitute to win7 for normal office work and browsing and youtubing. so really looking for a beginner and netbook friendly distro thats capable to work as a work station.
arch and crunchbang looks real slick to me but I guess it's a steep learning curve?
some of the xfce distros also appeal to me. is peppermint a lighter version of mint?
for now I'll install the PingEee I just finished downloading and report back for further questions.
do you also have some good pages for beginner guides? Thanks again.

I'm not a big Ubuntu fan for various reasons that have more to do with Canonical than with Ubuntu, but my netbook came with 8.04 from factory and is now running like a champ on 11.04.

I've been putting OpenSuse on my laptops for years now it just works.

I currently have Mandriva 2010.2 installed on my AAO, which I bought around '09 and haven't had any issues with it since. I'm also thinking of switching from Mandriva to Mageia, but Mandriva is running so perfectly on my netbook, that I hate to switch distros.

I have a Lenovo x100e with 2GB of RAM and 1.6 GHz prozessor (AMD 64 X2) I'm running Slackware64-13.37 on it.
With your hardware you can install any distribution on it, maybe the graphics is to weak for Gnome-3 or KDE.
Another constraint: I had Gentoo installed, but a subnotebook is not adequate for a distribution which expects every package to be compiled on the system. The machines become very hot and the fan is overstrained.
As a substitute for Windows I think (as above written) Ubuntu or Mint should be adequate.

Markus

I have Debian Squeeze on my Asus 1000PE and all is well.