Well... i've got a Dell Latitude l400, and want to make the switch to a linux only enviroment... I have some linux experience, but not much...

I don't wanna have to tinker too much with the system to get it to work, so i would like something with an easy install and setup... also, my computer has a tendency to end up in the hands of my less computer oriented friends, so i need something that they will be able to understand well enough to work on...

these are the specs:

Pentium III 700Mhz
256Mb RAM
20Gb HD

ATI Rage Mobility 4Mb

Crystal SoundFusion CS4281

Airlink101 802.11g CardBus adapter

that's about it...

Don't have any dell laptop experiance, but I have had good hardware detection experiance with ubuntu and mandriva. Of the two I would have to recommend Ubuntu over Mandriva as I have found that mandriva tends to release they're distro with software that is still buggy, however over all both distros have treated me well. I use mondriva 2006 on one of my computers and Kbuntu (ubntu w/ kde) on my other one.
--It is notable that you will probably get multiple responses on this thread that seem to contridict eachother, and they will all be correct, thats the nature of these "which distro is better" kind of questions.