Netbooks are smalllaptops, with screen sizes between approximately 7 and 12 inches and low power consumption. They use either an SSD (solid state disk) or a HDD (hard disk drive) for storage, have up to 2 gigabytes of RAM (but often less), lack anoptical disk drive, and usually haveUSB,Ethernet,WiFi and oftenBluetooth connectivity. The name emphasizes their use as portable Internet appliances.

There are specialLinux distributions, callednetbook distributions, for these machines. All such distributions purport to be optimized for use with small, low-resolution displays. They tend to include a broad mix ofVOIP and web-focused tools, including proprietary applications rarely seen installed by default by mainstream desktop distributions^{[citation needed]}. For instance,NokiaMaemo and Asus' customizedXandros both ship withSkype andAdobe Flash installed, and Ubuntu's Netbook Edition offers the option to do the same for OEMs.^[1]

While no public numbers measuring the install-base of these operating systems are available, Google Trends data on a handful of them indicate their relative popularity:

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