[LAU] Time for a new netbook. Advice?

[Ken Restivo]

It's time to finally retire my 2008-vintage EEE 1000 netbook, and get one with a faster processor and dual cores.

I won't need it for music-- the old one was plenty powerful enough for what I was doing anyway-- but I need it for work, and, java runs like an absolute pig on the old EEE (as does Firefox, and Chromium, and just about anything modern).

I have come to love the layout of this old EEE though, the keyboard, the form-factor, and its low current consumption (about 1A @12v). So I'd like to keep those as similar as possible. If I could upgrade the processor and RAM and keep everything else, I would.

So the EEE 1215N looks pretty good, and if I swap out its spinning-rust-platter drive with a cheap SSD, I can probably get the current consumption down.

But I worry. I worry about graphics card not working, wifi not working, sound not working, sleep not working, etc.

I looked at the DebianEEE wiki and it seems like not a lot has happened there in years.

Any advice on a fast (approaching laptop performance) netbook?

-ken