OK, I confess myself to be thoroughly impressed. I started by loading Red Hat 9 on an old laptop at work. (I want to investigate the feasibility of using Linux Terminal Server in some places where we want to have some computers for basic browsing and word processing, but there's really no security so we wouldn't want to put anything valuable in terms of hardware.) The last time I used linux with a GUI was in 1998. The whole process seemed so pointless (I was setting up a web/mail server box) that I never bothered with it again. Things have come so far!! Not only did it detect my wireless card (and believe me, PCMCIA used to be a bitch), it even automatically picked up my compact flash card reader when I plugged it into the USB. I'm definitely going to dual-boot when my new hardware comes in--I'd consider going cold-turkey but the wife isn't that adventurous. I only have three complaints so far:
1. Video--I can't get it to go into 1024x768 mode. I don't care much tho--on this old thing it will only do 256 colors in 1024x768. If I want 16 bit color I have to stick with 800x600.
2. Audio--no sound. I think I found the right module to load for it, but it's too late to do it tonight!
3. The trackpad--I absolutely hate the feature where you tap the trackpad and it duplicates a button click. I often end up clicking things by accident. But I'm not (yet) clear how to turn it off.