I've decided it's time to dump WinXP from my 2yr Acer Aspire One. I'm intriqued by Ubuntu Netbook Edition but is this the best way to go? I'm comfortable with GUI but I'm not adverse to using command-line. This device is used for engineering field work (wifi web access, notepad, pdf documents, design file review).

Welcome to the forums! Ubuntu is one of the premiere netbook distros, no doubt about it! But as you know, there are many other choices as well.

You can't really go wrong with any of the Distrowatch top ten: http://distrowatch.com/dwres.php?resource=major

If you have enough hard drive space, I would recommend keeping Windows and setting up a "dual boot".

Most(if not all) of the LINUX distros can be burned as an ISO image to CD and be run live from the CD without having to actually install them- so therefore, you can burn a few CDs of different distros that interest you and try them out from the CD without having to install them.

Me? I think Ubuntu is great.

I downloaded Ubuntu Desktop 10.04 LTS 64-bit and burned to a CD. I installed it to dual-boot with Windows on my home PC. The first issue I noted was I didn't have wireless connectivity. I suspect this would also be present on the Netbook Edition. At home it wasn't a driver issue, just needed it identify the router mac address. However, in the field, I wouldn't have that info available to me at a wifi hotspot.

Because i have never use netbook edition in any distro tell me is any app installed like network manager? This app auto finds wifi hotspots and mac addresses. Install this app. I think you can install using synaptic manager.

I haven't installed the netbook distro yet. I had installed the desktop distro on home pc and experienced non-connectivity after install. The install failed to recognize the Netgear WN111 USB dongle I use to connect to my Netgear WGR634 wireless router access point. I was able to track down a HOWTO on Ubuntu's forums so that's resolved. I suspect that once I determine the chipset used for the built-in wireless card on the Acer Aspire One AOA150-1006 netbook it will be easy to find and initialize.

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You might look into Debian or Xubuntu for you case. I would also look into qcad which is a freely available at least on Linux and Unix 2d/3d rendering program. I currently run Debian on both my laptop and Desktop and love the ease of use that synaptic provides for package management.

If your Aspire One has an SSD (as is the case with mine), you could always try Chromium OS: it is definitely a Linux distro and on top of that has the backing of Google. Seriously a good netbook Linux for beginners.

Prerequisites
You need to have Linux. We currently support the following:
•Ubuntu (Hardy 8.04 or newer, Lucid 10.04 recommended)
•A 64-bit system for performing the build
•An account with root access (needed to run chroot and modify the mount table)
•Chromium prerequisites (needed to build a Chromium-based browser as part of building Chromium OS)

That set of preqs doesn't sound like beginner friendly!

The desktop distro (Ubuntu 10.04 LTS) on my home pc has stop connecting wirelessly. Normally I shutdown my system at night and remove the dongle from its usb extension cable I have mounted at a high location. Before I restart the system the next day, I always reinsert the WN111 dongle. Now when I go into Ubuntu, I don't have wireless connectivity. I open the terminal and type sudo lshw -c network but it doesn't find the usb0 that it found before when it worked. Suggestions?

I've been trying to resolve the wireless connectivity issue with Ubuntu 10.04 64-bit on my home PC. When I first installed it I connected wirelessly thru a NetGear WN111v1 USB Wireless adapter to my NetGear router. After getting the latest updates and browsing a bit, I shutdown my system. As is common practice, I removed the USB dongle from its extension cable. The next day when I power-on my system, I always place the USB adapter in its bracket before I hit the power button. I boot into Windows first and I have zero problems connecting wirelessly. I rebooted the system and launched into Ubuntu. However this time, I didn't have connectivity to my wireless router. I followed the steps in Help/Wireless Toubleshooting section. Typing lsusb in the terminal shows the device is present. I installed the ndiswapper app from my ISO CD and installed a windows driver for this device that was suggested in another thread (netmw245.inf). When I typed ndiswapper -l in the terminal and found out that the chipset was Marvell TOPDOG. It was easy to find a driver thru a google search. Before I try to install this new driver, do I have to do anything to remove the old driver to avoid a conflict?