Hi

You are talking about the Asus Eee PC right? (This: http://www.asus.com/Eee/Eee_PC/Eee_PC_1000/)

If so I think you default is Xandros in a "simpel mode" with very big icons.
(something like this: http://www.pisitoenmadrid.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/02/asus_eee_xandros.jpg)

You can read about it here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASUS_Eee_PC#Linux_on_the_Eee_PC

Myself has an Asus 701 4G Linux and switched for advanced/normal/full desktop the first thing. I have been thinking about changing distro. on it for a long time now.

There is a lot of notebook Linux distributions and a lot of users upgrade to things like:

Ubuntu Netbook Edition: http://www.ubuntu.com/netbook
EasyPeasy: http://geteasypeasy.com/ (1.6 is latest and "old" but maybe we have 1.7 after the next Ubuntu release)

It's quite easy to test these out, you can download iso and put them on a usb stick and live boot them as whit CD's to test whiteout installing/changing your current system.

This tool is one commonly used for that: http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/

To say Linux don't have virus is not right. (that most users don't have to care because all of them is patched with updates maybe is) See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware#Viruses
You also have list of antivirus for linux on the same page, but you can be safe without it in my opinion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_malware#Anti-virus_applications

Hope that was to some help for you.