Best netbook?

At the moment my family has only one computer but someone is always using it. Sometimes it can be a problem when my sister and I are doing homework. My dad doesnt want to spend a lot of money and we would really only be using the computer for internet and typing up documents. I suggested to my dad that we get a netbook because they seem pretty small and cheap. We dont need anything super compact. I was looking for something with a 10" screen. I heard eee pcs are good but people also seem to like the dell minis. I was also looking at the hp minis which seemed to be really nice. Ive dont have any experience with linux but notice some of the netbooks came with it. We need to use microsoft word but I didnt know if we would be able to do this if the computer ran linux. If using microsoft word isnt a problem would using linux be a better choice than windows?