Windows 7???

I have a SSD Aspire One and the Linpus is fine except I need Firefox 3, and so far I have been unable to successfully upgrade. I took a look at the BASH command set and realised that I am too old to bother..Looking at the XP section I am not impressed.
So my son, who works for Microsoft reckons that W7 looks at the Atom processor and then installs a stripped down version of the operating system which is far more efficient etc... Well he would say that wouldnt he.
So in the real world how does the upgrade work in comparison say to XP or for that matter Linpus. I am interested in functionality rather than the upgrade process. Boot time of 2 minutes seem far too long, but does the system work straight away or are there major problem getting Wifi and disc drives to work?

 

there is a stripped down version floating down the internet called Tiny7 Rev01. For things like drivers, windows 7 does a perfect job detecting all the drivers and downloading it by itself. wireless and ethernet works without any installation.