[COLUG] Seeking recommendations for Linux distro for ancient laptop

[Andrew J. Barr]

On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 14:22 -0600, Thomas W. Cranston wrote:
> Be careful about new laptops(& PC's), especially ones preloaded w/Vista. 
> I am hearing rumors that MS has convinced manufacturers to use chipsets 
> that will only work w/Vista. Would appreciate confirmation of said rumor.

I _highly_ doubt it. Linux has drivers for most modern chipsets or will
shortly--I have a current-generation Core 2 Duo machine that has never
seen a copy of Windows and never will--even though the motherboard is
advertised as being Vista ready.

MS cares about sales--which they've already made in the OEM case. What
do they care what chipsets OEMs use? And what's more, often the chipset
vendors are the ones writing the Linux drivers just in the normal course
of product development--it's not like MS hasn't been bullying the
hardware industry for years anyway--this hasn't stopped them from
writing Linux drivers before, why should it now?

That rumor screams urban legend to me. _Everything_ that is widely sold
these days is preloaded with Vista. We'd be hearing about it if Linux
didn't work on machines available on the market _right now_.