A netbook computer is a small laptop computer, with a screen size between about 7 to 12 inches and low power use. They use either a solid state disk (SSD) or a hard disk drive (HDD) for storage, have up to 2 gigabytes of random-access memory (RAM), but often less, lack an optical disk drive, and usually have Universal Serial Bus (USB), Ethernet, Wi-Fi and often Bluetooth connectivity. The name emphasizes their use as portable Internet appliances.
There are special Linux distributions, called netbook distributions, for these machines. All such distributions purport to be optimized for use with small, low-resolution displays. They tend to include a broad mix of Voice over IP (VOIP) and web-focused tools, including proprietary applications rarely seen installed by default by mainstream desktop distributions. For example, Nokia Maemo, and Asus' customized Xandros both ship with Skype and Adobe Flash installed, and the Ubuntu Netbook Edition offers the option to do the same for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs).