[MadIvan]

Greetings, welcome to a wonderful new world.

First, go to Ubuntu.com - this is the best Linux variant for laptops, so far as I've experienced.

Try out the Live CD first, so you can see how it works before installing it.

Come back and tell me the results.

Regards, Ivan

[Spiff]

First, go to Ubuntu.com - this is the best Linux variant for laptops, so far as I've experienced. Try out the Live CD first, so you can see how it works before installing it.

Good recommendation. The Live CD trial will allow the user to make sure that video, wifi, sound, ethernet drivers and such work on the laptop and that the particular distro has everything else he needs.

Go to DistroWatch.com to read about and download various Live CD distros to try out.

[ThePythonicCow]

Older hardware should be the easier case for Linux.

Where one gets into troubles with drivers and such is with the latest hardware. Vendors tend to make sure Windows runs on their hardware and then ship it.

For more complex hardware, it can take a little while for the hardware to be reversed engineered so we can get a Linux driver.

So I'd just get an Ubuntu or SuSE CD and if you don't have anything on the laptop you care about, just start the installation.

If you laptop is so old it cannot boot off the CD, and has no BIOS option to ask to boot off the CD, then you will have to figure out the steps needed to make a boot floppy for your installation. This isn't too bad, once you find the instructions for it, given that you have other PC's that currently work.

Once you get far enough to boot off the SuSE or Ubuntu installation CD, you should be on easy street.

[KoRn]

"Try out the Live CD first, so you can see how it works before installing it."

Outstanding recommendation! That's what I always advise people to do who are thinking about it, or concerned with hardware compatibility.