Computer illiterate people (not meant in a negative way) buy them because they are cheap.

Somewhere along the way they realize they don't have a clue what Linux is, or that their work IT people don't support it, or they can't install that copy of Office 2003 on it.

Dell says it's not for technical reasons (Microsoft of course is all over it in their advertising), but, quoting Todd Finch, Dell senior product marketing manager for Dell (he by the way says it's a non issue, they get returns for Linux and Windows in equal amounts, but Dell has done tons to make sure Linux works with their product)

Where consumers have returned machines, Finch said, it wasn't because of technical problems but because they'd bought a low-priced machine expecting Windows and opened it to find a different interface. Consumers had responded to the low price, he said - the Mini 10v retails for $299 online.

"Now we are trying to be a little more explicit in our advertising," Finch said.

"We are not seeing any technical reasons for why they are returning Linux machines so...we don't see a significant difference between the return rate for Windows versus the rate for Linux. We've been quite pleased with the stability and technical soundness of the Linux machines."

But that doesn't mean netbooks are a shoo-in for Linux. Issues persist, particularly in battery life and power consumption, as well as with the number of applications available from major ISVs that run on Linux.

Power management will become more of an issue for Linux with Microsoft's Windows 7, Finch said, while he encouraged OpenSource World attendees to focus on writing cloud-based applications capable of running on any machine.