I am probably going to get shot down here for even suggesting such a thing, but a good friend of mine has an eeePC, and, after trying various linux distros, and XP, actually found that Windows 7 worked impressively well. He had to use Vlite, or whatever the Windows 7 equivalent is, to strip it back so it would fit on the highspeed SSD chip, as opposed to the larger drive, but apart from that, its fantastic.
I have had a play with it myself, everything works, and there are no compatibility issues, it seems to be rock solid. And comparable in speed to XP. Certainly its ability to go to sleep and wake up is very snappy indeed.
So yea, don't necessary get hung up on Linux, give Windows 7 a go!