A solution was quickly found on how to make 10.6.2 work on the Atom based netbook… simply use the 10.6.1 kernel instead of the 10.6.2.  This is certainly a step back from a proper upgrade but it is better than no upgrade at all.  Here is a copy of the instructions as written by Meklort:

For those of you who have already updated, and don’t have a working system do the following
1) Boot from the medium you used to install the os.
2) Open up a terminal
3) Run the following commands

cp /Volumes/InternalDrive/mach_kernel /Volumes/InternalDrive/mach_kernel_10_6_2
cp /mach_kernel /Volumes/InternalDrive/

For those of you who have yet to update, you can do the following
1) Open up a terminal.
2) run the following command (con’t close the window after)

sudo cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_10_6_1

3) Install the 10.6.2 update, but don’t restart yet
4) Run the following commands

sudo cp /mach_kernel /mach_kernel_10_6_2
sudo cp /mach_kernel_10_6_1 /mach_kernel

5) reboot.

If you rebooted before you replaced the new kernel, you can type “mach_kernel_10_6_1” at the bootloader (no quotes), and it’ll use the kernel you backed up.

Finally, run NetbookInstaller 0.8.3 RC3 from a normal boot, not safe mode (bug, doesn’t generate the mkexts correctly) so that you use the new extensions / GMA950 drivers / etc.