Looking to buy a netbook

Hey, I'm trying to buy a netbook type computer sometime during the summer. I have a desktop so I literally will only be using this to surf the internet and maybe do some MS Office type school work. I can't really decide between the manufacturers.

I've looked at HP, Dell, Asus and Lenovo netbook series. I'm kind of leaning towards the Lenovo right now.

Budget wise, I want to keep it close to $400, maybe a bit over.

I have a couple issues that I can't decide on and if anyone has any experience with any of the above brand netbooks I'd love to hear about it.

1) Microsoft vs Linux. I have never used linux for more than a few minutes so I don't know how comfortable I will be using it. However, since I'm only really going to be running firefox, my main concern is ease of setting up network connections. My college has kind of an annoying system that lets you connect to the ongrounds wifi. Is it easy to get networks to recognize a linux machine?

2) SSD vs HDD. Capacity is not an issue whatsoever. Will it make a noticeable difference when just browsing?

Thanks!