I have received my new laptop, the Gateway MT6729, and I have to say I am impressed. After my Thinkpad R60 with 512 MB RAM and 60 GB HDD, this 2 GB RAM 160 GB HDD unit is like a dream boat. Well, coming into this I expected to want to revert back to XP after starting up Vista. However, after the initial breakin, with the OS attempting to define what I want to do, I have to say MS isn't totally off the mark with Vista. There is quite a bit of eye candy, which I thought might contribute to the slowing of my system overall, but as I have yet to really "wait" on anything, I believe I like the pretty stuff. But, alas, just as I am tempted to fall in love with MS (giggle) here come the "..only 25 more uses of MS word before you 'pay up'" and free 60 day trial of Norton security suite, etc. This is where good ol' open source and Linux distros come in. I'm now trying to decide which distro I want permanently installed. I want a really fast, streamlined OS and I booted up DSL with a live CD. However, I also want a pretty functional OS out of the box and as I had some trouble (as to be expected with any new OS) with my ethernet detection, I think I will move on to a more fully featured distro. I'm always leaning towards an Ubuntu derivation, as that was my first Linux love, but there are so many choices!!!

Hey guys,I'm about to buy a new laptop, and I am planning on putting Ubuntu 8.04 ( Hardy Heron)on it.My first laptop was a Lenovo Thinkpad R60 with 512 MB RAM 60 GB HDD and ~14" screen...I'm about to purchase this:Gateway MT6729 Intel Pentium dual-core T2330(1.60GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 2GB Memory 160GB HDD Dual layer DVD Burner Intel GMA X3100 NoteBook - RetailHopefully it will be a nice step up, even though it will ship with Vista...I've heard you can do some things to streamline Vista, which I plan on doing. I'm not quite ready to leap fully into Ubuntu by having it as my sole OS, so I have to keep windows around for a while.So any advice on my choice for a new laptop would be helpful... or any info on upcoming sales at New Egg.Well that's it for my first post.