I've tried many different types of Linux on my laptop:

• Fedora 8
• Ubuntu
• Kubuntu
• SamLinux2007
• Arch
• OpenSuse 10.3
• Xubuntu
• FreeSpire
• Some Gnome/Enlightenment/Ubuntu mashup I got out of a magazine
• Debian Lenny

None of these worked fully till I tried the newest version of OpenSuse. OpenSuse 11.0 is heaven.  It recognized my graphics, my wireless card (the new RaLink one) and all of the other doodads that need to work for your computer to be considered functional.  Everything was pretty much out-of-box except for the sound.  I still have to mess with the sound.  That's the only headache I have.  That, and this one-click thing.  I'm trying to figure that out as well.  I want to install Gwibber. Anyway, I'm extremely happy with this OpenSuse, especially since it comes in a Gnome flavor.  I love Gnome (don't really know why, but I just do).  Pretty easy to deal with. I'll post more when I get the sound fixed.  Need my internet radio...

I now have Mandriva on my laptop. It was a long process that started on Monday this week.  I got home from work and decided that I wanted to dual-boot my laptop with Ubuntu and Windows.  Well, I put my Kubuntu disc into the DVD drive, and rebooted.  I told it to install, and it did... sort of.  I got impatient with the partitioner and I fubar'd my Windows install.  Yeah, it went away... totally. So I was Windows-less.  No big deal, I try to reinstall Kubuntu.  Well, I end up with a resolution of 600x800 (ugly) and no wireless.  I went "meh" and stated a download of Mandriva.  After that was downloaded, I installed that.  Wireless wasn't working, but I did have a 1024x768 resolution.  I decided that wasn't good enough and I quit for the evening. The next day (Tuesday) I stated again after work.  I had Mandriva on the computer, and I wasn't happy.  So, I went to Freespire.  Now, I had a brilliant amount of success with wireless (ie, it worked out of the box) but not with the resolution.  It was at 600x800.  So...  I was tired and went to bed after futzing with it for a couple hours. Wednesday, I started on my project again.  I decided to install vanilla Ubuntu.  No dice.  No wireless, no decent resolution... Frustration abounded.  I was talking to Brian and he suggested Fedora.  I found a decent Fedora download and got it.  I did the install, and had about the same results as before. Now, we go to Thursday night.  I was growing tired of the reinstalls and the non-working wireless and crappy resolution.  So, I decided to try Mandriva again.  I installed it, and started browsing the forums to figure out how to get wireless and the resolution working.  I figured out the resolution and got it set to 1280x768 the way I wanted it.  Wireless was a little more of an issue. I got the drivers I needed and started hacking around the gui for the wireless setup.  I got it all set up and lo and behold, WIRELESS WORKS!!! YAHOO!!! I'm quite happy with Mandriva.  It works on the laptop really well.  I haven't tried suspend/hibernate yet and I'll report back if/when it works. KDE was acting up for a little while, but once I turned off the effects (compiz-fusion) it worked like a charm.  Make sure you disable the desktop effects, at least initially, until you're sure it's going to work. If you have a laptop that you need to ditch Windows on (or you just want to try something new) give Mandriva a try.  I'm quite happy with it. Happy computing to all!