There's been a lot of talk about installing WinXP on the Eee. This is easily done because the Eee is little more than a miniature x86 notebook, although you'll need an external DVD drive and also one of the recent SP2-enabled XP install CDs because this has a tweaked installer allowing for USB-based install.

The problem is that the Eee has a solid state drive (SSD), which has a limited lifespan because of reduced write cycles compared to a standard hard disk.

Windows is constantly saving temp files, and loves to use that swap file (particularly considering the Eee only has 256/512MB of memory). Linux is arguably simpler in its hard disk use. The default install of Xandros on the Eee doesn't include a swap file or partition. I'm not sure if the logging services are trimmed too, but that would make sense.

There are also dangers in using any kind of indexing service, such as Google Desktop.

The most sensible recommendation if you want to install XP is to increase the memory to 1/2GB (which will invalidate your warranty, btw), and then either switch off the swap file or shift it onto a removable storage card (the Eee has a MMC/SD port built in). You should also shift your /tmp directory onto removable storage.

But the fact of the matter is that Windows XP just isn't optimised for solid state drives. Then again, if the Eee's disk fails in, say, three years, is this likely to be a problem? Will you still be using your Eee in three years or will you have moved onto something newer?