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Put linux on it. The "rabbit hole of drivers" doesn't really exist any longer, and a passing familiarity with linux can really be a useful skill to have.

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That's good to hear. Linux doesn't scare me at all. It's Linux on a laptop that scares me. I'm a command line kind of guy, but not a hardware kind of guy. I just want to spend time being productive, not chasing down info in forums. Last time I had Linux on a laptop (a long time ago) it took literally a PhD to help me get it done.

If you want command line, then you can edit the /etc/rc* files to startup into a full-screen terminal if you like. There's nothing that says you must run Gnome/KDE/etc.

Karmic Koala Beta runs on virtually everything I've tried it on with no driver problems, even wierd built-in webcams on notebooks.

If you want to go really minimal, then you could run Debian (upon which Ubuntu is based). I have a Compaq Armada running Debian without problems.

You could grab the latest Ubuntu CD image (the new 9.10 ships on Thursday) and give it a try in live cd mode. That will give you a good idea of how much will work without chasing down drivers.

Great suggestion! Thanks for the heads up on this.

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