Linux Distro for HP zv5410us Laptop

Hello everyone.

I recently purchased a HP zv5410us laptop. The brief specs are below.

AMD® Athlon™ 64 processor 3000+ with PowerNow!™ (1.8GHz)
• Windows XP Home with Service Pack 2
• 512MB DDR SDRAM
• 60GB hard drive
• 24X DVD/CD-RW combo drive
• 15.4" WXGA high-definition widescreen display (BrightView)
• NVIDIA® GeForce4™ 440 Go graphics
• 54g™ integrated 802.11b/g wireless LAN
• 5-in-1 digital media card reader

I'm currently doing some research on which Linux Distro works on this laptop. I'd like to dual boot leaving the Windows XP.

The biggest problem I have read about is getting the Broadcom wireless to work in Linux. I've been successful with the ndiswrapper and windows drivers using some of the Live CD distros such as kanotix and knoppix.

Obviously, I'd like all the hardware to work but it would be nice to have a distro that takes advantage of the AMD64 without too many headaches.

I'm leaning towards these:

FC3, Suse Pro, or Mandrake.

I've worked with all these (older versions) and several other distros in the past. I don't mind paying for a distro if I'm sure it is going to work with the hardware.

Any suggestions out there?

Thanks,
Richard

Well, I'm not sure. I always suggest Slackware, but since you want one of these three, I think Suse or Mandrake should do the job.

And if your hardware worked with Knoppix, it should work with Mandrake or Suse (I've heard Fedora has fallen a bit behind those two in hardware recognition, but I can't confirm that). You can grab either one of those distros for free if you'd like (although I advocate at least donating to projects, whether with your time or $).

so far i have used slackware on my notebook. i got a hold of a notebook and i am installing linux on it as well. a Compaq armada 7800.

Do you see how we agree Flatline :D Anyway, I think you shouldn't choose Fedora.