I've used Ubuntu (various flavors) on a lot of machines, as well as some other Linux distros, and the standard Ubuntu is as stable and friendly a thing as you'll ever want to find in the Linux world. Unless you have some particular project in mind (in which case, do tell!) I'd suggest starting with the default flavor; it comes with a broad range of stuff installed, and of course one of the joys of it is that you can always just try a different flavor if you decide it doesn't feel right for you.

Thanks, amych. Stable and friendly sound good. I'll give it a shot.

I use Ubuntu on my dual-boot home desktop. I think the Ubuntu distribution is probably the most friendly to use though I've used Fedora with good results. Like all Linux distributions, things tend to be a little rough around the edges and you might need to visit ubuntuforums.org and be ready to use the command line if you run into an issue. Software too, tends to be less polished on Linux.

You will want to make sure that the wireless chipset in the laptop is supported, asking on ubuntuforums.org would be a good place to check. If it is Intel, you are probably good.

All that said, I like the GNOME UI better than Windows, and I've found it to be very stable and more responsive than Windows especially under heavy CPU load (like two threads both transcoding video in the background).

Has anybody bought iphone earbuds that they like? My sister bought me a V-moda set for Christmas, and they are already sporadic in terms of playing music in both ears.

I actually switched my grandfather's computer from Windows to Fedora because, for the limited number of things we does with it, Fedora is a lot easier to deal with than Windows.

All that said, I like the GNOME UI better than Windows, and I've found it to be very stable and more responsive than Windows especially under heavy CPU load (like two threads both transcoding video in the background).

Yeah, I hate it when Windows goes unresponsive under heavy load. Does it happen as much on a multi-core CPU machine? One thing I love about my MacBook (with the multi-core Intel chip) is the UI always is responsive, even if an app is hogging one or both cores.

I've run into the same thing with Windows on multi-core as well. I think, based on pure speculation, that there is a fundamental problem with the way Windows does virtual memory because it seems like it gets disk bound even where there should be enough physical memory. I actually like XP quite a bit, but that is one of the things that gets really annoying. Fortunately, I don't do a lot of CPU heavy things with XP.

Vista might be a bit better about it. I do some pretty heavy CPU stuff on it without getting slogged. Disk heavy tasks still can slam on the brakes though.

Perkins, I bought little Bose buds (pricey) and love 'em.

My brother gave me Koss ones for xmas, and they a) don't hurt (regular ipod ones leave my ears in so much pain and they always fall out), b) are amazing on a plane (but note my previous experience was with default ipod earbuds) and c) the on-cord volume is nice. I can't speak to longevity, as I've only had them since xmas and I don't use them that often. Like these: [link] (I don't know if they are the same model or not. The smallest rubber cover works for me.

My brother gave me Koss ones for xmas, and they a) don't hurt (regular ipod ones leave my ears in so much pain and they always fall out), b) are amazing on a plane (but note my previous experience was with default ipod earbuds) and c) the on-cord volume is nice. I can't speak to longevity, as I've only had them since xmas and I don't use them that often. Like these: [link] (I don't know if they are the same model or not. The smallest rubber cover works for me.

I think that's the brand I recently bought, which I loved until I lost sound in one ear, and then, later that day, both ears. I always eventually lose sound in one ear, but not after a month or so. I'm now using Sony buds I borrowed from my Walkman (yes, Walkman).

I think the iPod buds actually lasted pretty long (for me that means over a year).