Near the peak of the netbook fad, I picked up a refurbished Dell Mini9. At the time I purchased it, there were several linux distributions which seemed at least worthy of trying out, and I spent several months doing just that. It was around this time that I realized that purchasing a netbook without a data plan was an obvious mistake; nearly everything that I'd want to do with a tiny laptop required an internet connection. Still, this was like a project of discovery...I don't NEED everything. So these are my requirements: ssh client web browser (preferrably Google Chrome) wireless internet (3g / 4g or wifi) That's it! (note, if I was shopping for something like a 13" MacBook Air, that list would be a little different.) But I digress. After upgrading to the latest version of Ubuntu, I noticed a considerable drag on performance on my Mini. Boot times were longer, applications took longer to launch. And considering the software requirements I identifie...