When I got my Dell Inspiron 8600 laptop back in Dec 2004, my intentions have always been to dual boot the machine, and try to make it primarily a Linux box. I decided to go with old reliable Fedora, which at the time was at Core 2. Well, overall I was impressed, it had many great features and I was pretty happy with it. Except for two things: I could not get wireless to work (Intel PRO 2100 chipset), and the “media” buttons did not work. I could live with the media buttons not working, as the only ones I really use are the volume buttons, and barely use those. Wireless however is a problem. A big problem. I have wireless throughout my house, and it really was a pain to not be able to use it. So, I went back to Windows as my primary system, and promptly forgot I had a linux partition (other than the fact that my 60GB hard-drive looked like a 10GB harddrive to Windows).
Since then, I have tried Fedora Core 3, as well as OpenSuse 10, both of which had the same problems. Now, I did my tech-geek job and hunted for the right versions of patches and utilities to resolve these issues, and got close a couple of times. But frankly, I am an application developer, and do not want to be a systems developer right now in my career. I do not want to spend time trying to learn how to patch the Linux kernel at this time. I expect my OS to just work and support me in a stable way, which though it may be sad to say, Windows does most of the time.
But, I still want Linux to work. I want to be able to use it as my OS of choice. And, as with most techies, want my freedom from the oppression that is the Microsoft EULA. So, I installed Ubuntu 5.10 earlier this week. And guess what… it works! I downloaded the single disk, networked install disc, started it up and it immediately found my network and started to go at it. I have had no problems with Wireless, and no problems with the media keys. (My)Eclipse is installed, RadRails is installed, and everything works. It rocks! So now I need a VM Ware license so that I can keep a Windows XP “machine” around for testing, but move on over to the Penguin side for good. At least at home. 
As for now I have not decided if I will move my ancient desktop over to Ubuntu from OpenSuse 10… it seems to work… slowly. As for my server (Fedora Core 3) it is stable and I have not needed it too much lately, so it will probably stay where it is.
So, a big “Thank you , you guys rock!” to the people behind Ubuntu.
Jess | 17-Feb-06 at 2:23 pm | Permalink
You shouldn’t need a “VM Ware license”. Both VMWare Player and VMWare GSX (server) are free as of about a week ago. So go at it and make your VMs!
R.J. Lorimer | 17-Feb-06 at 3:50 pm | Permalink
I finally chocked up the nerve to try a dual boot on my Sager 3790 laptop. Ubuntu 5.10 worked without a hitch, and after performing some FGLRX tweakery for my ATI card, it now screams in 3d demos too (the GPL mesa driver looks fine, but is fairly inefficient).
I actually haven’t booted to Windows at all for almost a month; very liberating!
Brian McKendrick | 17-Feb-06 at 3:57 pm | Permalink
Had the exact experience about a month ago. I tried the LiveCD first, switched shortly thereafter. I’m not a fan of the Ubuntu Gnome desktop but after switching to Kubuntu’s KDE interface, felt right at home …
Jin Chun | 18-Feb-06 at 8:35 am | Permalink
I’m dual booting into Suse on my old dell xps (not the fancy new one, but the older burn my legs from the heat one). I recently upgraded to Suse 10 and just ran the ndis driver utility that installed and wrapped the broadcom driver for the truemobile 1450. I’ve ubuntu was good, and some of my friends in the code monkey zoo run core 4, but I’ve been pretty content :-). I’m just dreaming of a laptom w 4 slots or a mem co to make a 2 gig sodimm
Matt | 18-Feb-06 at 8:44 am | Permalink
Jin, I hear you there! I have 2GB of RAM in my Dell, which is great… but I always want more.
What I really want now is a smallish (~12″ screen) laptop that can hold >2GB ram, have all the current features, and weigh in at less than 4.5LBs.
To that end I am seriously thinking about the ThinkPad X60… or maybe a new MacBook… maybe someday
Scott Belitz | 22-Feb-06 at 9:55 am | Permalink
Leave a small windows partition on your laptop and install remote desktop. Install remote desktop capabilities on a windows workstation somewhere else in the house. Then you can remote into it from your laptop when you need to do windows testing. You use that computers resources and save your laptops resources for linux.
John Christopher | 01-Mar-06 at 2:48 pm | Permalink
I have been using linux for over 6 years now. I started with Redhat 5.2 and switched to Mandrake around version 7.0. I stayed with Mandrake up until 10.2 and tried KUbuntu out just to try something new. Every piece of hardware I have on my laptop worked after install and I haven’t looked back since.