I tend to agree with the
Snopes analysis: these days, it's all about commercial gain, not taking systems down. These things can go for years without being diagnosed, like a person who carries Epstein-Barr or HPV.
It would be nice to gloat about this Linux netbook, but I still keep an XP machine going for games, and jobs where only Microsoft Office is compatible enough. (Much as I like OpenOffice, it mangles the Equations in my Word documents.)