Lee commented that the HP Pavilion dv2000 is well supported by Ubuntu/Kubuntu Linux 6.10 (aka EdgyEft). In particular, he mentioned that sound worked, and the extra row of blue-lit multimedia buttons at the top works. That sounded very interesting, so I decided to have a try. I use Gnome, not KDE, as my desktop, so I chose to look at Ubuntu, not Kubuntu (which Lee uses).
One very neat thing is that the Ubuntu installation CD is also a live distribution, so you can use it to test Ubuntu compatibility with your PC before actually installing it. This is what I did. I certainly also appreciated that the desktop version of Ubuntu fits on a single CD! By comparison, I'm currently downloading the installation image for openSUSE 10.2 (which I consequently haven't installed yet, but will in the near future). openSUSE 10.2 is a 3.7G download, and required 5-6 CDs or a DVD.
Ubuntu looks really neat when you start it up. SUSE isn't bad, but Ubuntu looks more polished. I can see why it is so popular. From the outset it makes you feel good about the choice that you have made.
As Lee reported, sound works. However, only the speakers work. The headphones don't work, and microphones don't work. This is the same as SUSE 10.1 with an ALSA patch, so I guess Ubuntu 6.10 has picked up this change (I hope openSUSE 10.2 will have it as well).
The volume up/down/mute buttons on the dv2000 certainly do work under Ubuntu, which is neat. They don't under SUSE 10.1. However, Ubuntu is unable to detect the built-in webcam, same as SUSE 10.1.
The software manager in Ubuntu looks cool, nicer than the one in SUSE (which hasn't changed since version 9). One neat thing is that it shows 1 to 5 stars to indicate the popularity of each package, which is useful for anyone who is looking for a particular kind of application but could use a bit of help in picking which of the alternatives to try (and I'm certainly sometimes in that boat myself).
On the other hand, the wireless LAN support in Ubuntu is weaker. You have to type in the wireless LAN keys in hex, like you do in Windows. SUSE 10.1 lets you type in the human-readable passphrase. SUSE 10.1 also has an applet that displays all of the available wireless LANs (up to 12 at my place). I couldn't find an equivalent in Ubuntu (and if there was one, it wouldn't have hurt to have it installed as a default).
I noticed that Ubuntu's nautilus (Gnome file manager) has a menu entry to allow you to submit translations of the nautilus menu entries (etc.) via the Web. That's a cool way to allow people to help with the effort of internationalising the software.
However, on balance, I'll be sticking with SUSE. Ubuntu looks nice, but there is no net advantage for me in switching. It does some things better than SUSE, some things worse. I can only hope the SUSE folks work out how to support the multimedia keys on the dv2000 …
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