What is the best Netbook Operating System?

Ooh, an operating system for that itty-bitty computer with almost enough power to run Windows 7. That's right, I'm talking about your netbook. I got a netbook last summer, and the quest for the perfect operating system for it has been a long yet fascinating adventure. There are a lot of opperating systems with a lot of pros and cons, so I'll just take you through the steps that led me to where I am today.

Windows 7 In the history of Microsoft, it has rarely been that a newer version of Windows required less resources than a previous, but Windows 7 is one of those. But then Vista was a water-logged sumo wrestler, so maybe it's not so amazing after all. But needless to say it was a step in the right direction. But still with only 1GB of ram on my Acer Aspire One d255e, it was just a little slugish. Something I couldn't bear with. Not to mention that Windows has it's quirks and is generally not very flexible. And for my little netbook with not much ram, and a 10" screen, flexibility was everything. So... repartition time. Enter...

Ubuntu 11.04 Linux and Ubuntu are almost synonymous anymore. In 2012, Ubuntu seems to be the flagship distro. Aah, here was my resting place, It was an operating system with all the features and flexibility I needed. After a few weeks, I deleted my windows partition. This was the OS for me. It was really great for several months.

But then I made the mistake of seeing my brother-in-law's mac book pro. I was never the same again. Discontented by the three second waits that I kept running into, my constant use of swap, and to top it all, Google+ Hangouts barely ran. I knew my netbook could do better than this if only it could be unchained. I wanted a computer that was like click-BANG! click-BANG! smooth scrolling, and lite enough to let me encode and decode several webcam streams at once. That's what I needed, and while Ubuntu was user-friendly and flexible, it managed to use half of my ram just idling. I knew I had to find something better, but I was at a loss. What do I run? DSL Linux? Puppy?? Oh come on... surely there's an operating system that offers 2012 style functionality without being a complete HOG!

#! Crunchbang Linux No, that's not a hash tag, and no, I'm not swearing. That's the name of it: Crunchbang Linux abbreviated "#!". If I've ever heard an operating system aptly named, this was it. It's wicked fast. It lets you crunch numbers and big programs like... BANG! Thus the name. But be ye warned, this is not for the faint of heart. It's minimalistic. Not in a functional way, in a graphical way. 

It comes with built in install scripts for Google Chrome, Dropbox, and Java Runtime. It's a very modern operating system, it just doesn't have all the baggage of something like Ubuntu or Mint. (Or Windows 7 obviously) It comes with these GUI components: Openbox (window manager) Tint2 (dock and task bar) and Conky the infamous system monitor. This os is so customizeable that it takes a little bit of config script knowledge to get up and running the way you want. But hey, it idles using about 98MB of ram, installs in about 15 minutes, boots in under a minute, and shuts down in about 10 seconds. Yet it runs Google Chrome like a dream, Skype and Google+ Hangouts stream really smooth, and it's the the fastest yet I've seen at booting. 

So, is this the OS for netbooks? Yes. I'd say so. It's very lite, very functional, and very flexible. That's what a netbook needs. I set mine up to autohide Tint2 so that Chrome can use all of my screen space -- something which is very precious on a netbook. I also changed the background, Conky theme, and Tint2 theme.

Yes my friends, this is the OS for your netbook. On lite, functional, and flexible, it's win, win, win!