Mint Fluxbox (Helena 8 edition)

Installed it without problems from a USB and it's been running like a charm this last week.

very simple, very intuitive menu system, even for a linux newcomer like me

packaged with various equivalents to linpus, some equal, some better (eg a media player with playlists!), most untried yet.
System also now recognizes my external hardrive, which it didn't before.

the wifi light no longer works (but the wifi does), and occasional windows/menus can pop up too large for the screen. Worse case ones have had their header off the top and their accept/cancel buttons off the bottom. this is mildly annoying, but not crippling.

when I find a fix will post it here.

battery life may have gone down slightly (from 2,5 hours to just under 2). This is probably just not remembering to turn wifi off when i don't need it.
overall, very happy, far easier to work with then linpus.

 

You are probably aware of this already but if you hold ALT and drag the window you can move it to get at those buttons. This way you can move the window much farther as you can grab it from anywhere, not just the header bar. Unfortunately I dont think that there is any way to get all window controls to fit within a specific sized window (i.e. suitable for a netbook screen) without recompiling the application in question.

I am not sure which AAO you have and these instructions are for an older version of Ubuntu (what Mint is based on) but you may wish to give it a try anyway to get your LED's working:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Aspir ... EDs/Switch

Your screen will use a lot of the battery if it is quite bright, may wish to turn it down as much as possible although by default it should do this when unplugged.