I installed Ubuntu 8.10, from the distribution CD (in a USB CD/DVD reader). I used a single partition ext2 on the SSD (8G). No swap initially, I'm still experimenting …

I found very useful the instructions provided on this page

The main problem was the wireless. Two problems actually:

1. first the wireless as configured in the Ubuntu 8.10 does not work. It keeps trying to acquire a connection with the access point without succeeding establishing it. As suggested in this page, I disabled the drivers used and installed the 5K ones and the problem was solved. Be careful! If the wireless does not function properly you should consider the possibility is is switched off (hw): try using the front slider and keep in mind the led is not working.
2. second, the wireless perfectly working in my department and in several other contexts, was not working with my Alice ADSL router at home. Actually, it was partially working. Some web pages were displayed correctly, some not at all, some only partially and after long time. I tried with a different wireless device (D-LINK USB DWL-G122) which is perfectly recognized and operated by default configuration of Ubuntu 8.10. Same problems. Therefore the problem is not in the link layer. This was confirmed by the fact the same problems just mentioned was verified after connecting the AcerAspireOne to one of the “wired” plugs of the router. After trying different solutions I eventually modified some of the TCP/IP parameters in the /etc/sysctl.cnfg file, as suggested on this page (in italian, it looks like this is a pretty “local” problem due to the particular hardware provided by the Italian Alice provider). The proposed settings work fine. I'm still investigating the effect of these changed on other, more standard access points.
3. more details on the wireless settings on the network page.

I like to read and annotate documents by handwriting. I have a small Wacom tablet (it is a Sapphire, actually, but newer ones work as well) and I use Jarnal application to write on PDF files. This works pretty fine on the Aspire One with Ubuntu 8.10. Just download the application, run it with the Wacom tablet attached and annotate any PDF document (open new document on PDF background menu item). The document can be saved in jarnal format (notes only or notes+PDF) or you can choose to Print it “with options”. Options include PDF exporting of the file.

I got the suggestion of configuring the system without swap. It spares space on the SSD and hopefully avoids much writing on it. My configuration has only 512M of main memory, which is fine for “normal” usage (web, email, some office stuff). However there are cases that require more memory. Jarnal (the scribbling application) is quite demanding. I found convenient to have a swap file to be activated just in case of need. I have a 8G SD permanently mounted on the left SD slot. I created a swapfile on it:

dd if=/dev/zero of=/media/Kingston/swapfile bs=1024 count=512K

then I made it a swap fielsystem

mkswap /media/Kingston/swapfile

Now I activate/deactivate it as needed with a

swapon /media/Kingston/swapfile
swapoff /media/Kingston/swapfile

command. All these command must be issued from the root account, of course.