Maximum PC

I have recently acquired a Gateway Netbook. It has 2GB and the N fastest Atom process.
I installed Linux Mint. Questions relating and not to it:

1. The hard drive spins constantly. Can it not? It will run the battery down and is bad for hd.

2. Best distro for a netbook that's not crippled like UNE?

Moving this from another thread I mistakenly opened:

I have tried Ubuntu, UNE, Linux Mint and Crunchbang. All but Crunchbang work (wireless issues).

I want one that has enough features to not be as "crippled" as UNE but not "bloated" (in the sense of netbooks).

How much Linux experience do you have?

You may want to try Fedora. I haven't used it on my netbook, but I have used it on a P4 and it was decently fast.

What kind of features are you looking for in Linux? Most things can be installed afterward (referring to games, office suites, programs, etc).

If you have a lot of Linux experience, may want to give Arch Linux a try. It is more difficult to get set up and running, but is very lean and you install only what you need.

I just know how to get around and the differences between Linux and Windows but
I don't know too many commands or how to use the terminal.

Install Debian. It's a full-distro but will run fine on even older hardware. I would do a base install and then just use APT to install my Desktop Environment (DE). Gnome or KDE would work fine but on a netbook, I'd go for something like Fluxbox or Enlightenment.

Debian is nice because you can dig in and "get your hands dirty" so to speak, or it can be almost as easy as Ubuntu. The only things it doesn't do like Ubuntu and Fedora and similar are the super easy setup of things like Java, Flash, and 3rd-party drivers for things like wireless cards and video cards. Installing the drivers are quite easy, Flash is all about putting it in the right directory, and Java is also rather easy, but it takes a lil bit of command line work.

Maniac, I suggest spending a bit of time here.

I'm not sure what you mean by "UNE is crippled" and what you think bloated is (since you installed Mint)

My initial thought to all this, is ditch running gnome and start working with XFCE. Fedora, Mint, debian, all have the capability to run this.

How much of a difference would a 7200RPM drive be compared to a 5400RPM drive? I know it won't make it fast as lightning but to what extent will the changes be.

Also, where is a good directory of linux games? More of 2D games, not 3D since I'm on a netbook.