"... a lot of consumer that had purchased netbooks were returning them when they realized that these small machines were not able to perform all the tasks of a full size computer, like playing games or editing video."
"That's certainly true if you're running Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7, all of which are significantly more resource hungry that any of the Linux distributions typically offered on netbooks. When you add anti-virus and anti-spyware software plus a personal firewall, the minimum requirements for a safe and secure Windows system, the poor netbook is so bogged down that performance is poor. The fact is that many tasks that are painful or even impossible on a Windows netbook are very doable on the same hardware running a well optimized Linux build.
"Tracy Anne Barlow of LXer.com and Australia's Feral Penguin Computers recently related her own experience:
""At the computer show we were at on Sunday [...] there was another exhibitor there with a Win XP based netbook. In comparison to my Ubuntu powered netbook it was slow [like] wading through molasses to use. I commented on this, and the bloke said, well it's only supposed to be used for Web surfing and such, but I can't imagine that experience would be any too exciting."
