so i ran across this video, tried it and it got my netflix working on my ultrabook. he also has a guide for ubuntu 12.04 but i haven't tried that one so i don't know if it works or not.
arch- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfgYMrRxtZY oh and this does take awhile to install, it took my ultrabook about 40 minutes i'd guess.
and i know we have a lot of ubuntu users so he also has a video for that
ubuntu- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xu0SLCnGa0
Would either of these installation/tutorial videos work for Linux mint xfce, also, if it does, would it be more demanding to run Netflix on windows or Linux mint xfce ( I have a very weak laptop)
I would recommend going the pipelight way instead of the netflix-desktop way because then it will just be a wrapper for your linux browser instead of having to install a windows browser on your linux.
That said, installing it is the same, but you have to install something called a user agent switcher to fool netflix and other sites to think they are on windows.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/Pipelight
As for performance, I can't really say much except it works. I don't have windows and never used netflix before now but I was not disturbed by the performance at all.