I recently put Ubuntu on a Dell Mini Vostro A90. It is a nice little OS that embraces the netbook really well. Sadly my installation was less than easy. Who would have thought it would be easier to install OS-X on a Dell netbook that it would be to get Ubuntu going on the same netbook!? My feeling is that whoever manages the Ubuntu project is not doing a very good job. I guess the joy of opensource OS projects is that there is no one person to sneer/jeer at like Balmer or Jobs.
Anyway to get it working on a Dell Mini A90, you first have to make a USB stick. That required the use of a Windows box (SAD!) because the USB stick software that shipped with Ubuntu does not work.
Next you have to get wireless network to work. Using the wired ethernet, do the following:
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get --reinstall install bcmwl-kernel-source
Next up the sound will not work (LAME!) Do the following:
sudo vi /etc/modprobe.d/alsa-base.conf
Add the following at the end of the file:
options snd-hda-intel model=dell
And finally the machine will hang if there is an SD-card mounted when the machine sleeps. This requires the following hack:
sudo vi /usr/sbin/pm-suspend
add the following to the beginning of the file:
# HACK - WLW umount sd card!
umount /media/
After that things are pretty sweet. I get vlc 480p video playback. skype, mobile me, google cloud services, twitter, etc. Quite an easy OS to pick up and just use.