i suspect that microsoft inadvertently helped define the netbook: manufacturers wanted to use XP, microsoft wanted XP to die already (still does.) Microsoft parried with the XP-ULPC license, which I believe was only to be installed on machines with no more than 1GB ram and 160GB hard drive. So there's part of the standard. Throw in a 9 or 10 inch display and delete the optical drive and we have arrived in netbook land.

my dual-boot Acer Aspire runs 3.5 hours of XP, or 2.0 hours of Ubuntu netbook edition. Linux power management sucks. The laptop is now the "desktop," so until Linux gets serious about power it's going to be relegated to a beige/black box under your desk/in your server closet.

The only glaring problem that I can find with ubuntu 10 is power management.
XP = 3.5 hours of battery
ubuntu = 2.25 hours of battery

The Pak Scouts ran one bussard ramjet in front of another, with the second burning the exhaust from the first as fuel! If you don't have a hyperdrive, all that hydrogen is a feature, not a bug.

I still have an old 32" crt Magnavox TV with SmartSound. It works incredibly well, and you actually want to leave it on for movies. IIRC, the reason that Magnavox doesn't make SmartSound is that congressional douchebags made the technology illegal at the behest of Madison Avenue.