I guess I'll throw in my $.02. Based on what I hear from the OP (well thats how I read it at least), I think the eee would be the best bet overall. Here is my twisted reasoning. Based on his living situation it would seem best for him to keep it small so as to be able to stash it away and still be able to use it away from home. Also he can always just use the KM&M from the desktop. From what I overstand from his post, he is looking to learn, well there is much you can learn from the eee. The methods used to install other operating systems ( other flavors of Linux, same with windows and OSX are known to work), then configuring them to use all of the eee's hardware would be useful. Then there are all the mods that can be done to the little bugger. (Internal BT, touch screen, 3g, gps... you get the picture). There have been quite a few good suggestions but I think that there is nothing wrong with the original question. That there are other issues involved, uh, yeah.