Ok, I have an HP dv9000t laptop - these are the specs:

* – 35% OFF! Genuine Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)
* – Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.0GHz/4MB L2Cache)
* – 17.0" WXGA+ Ultra BrightView Widescreen (1440x900)
* – 512MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7600
* – FREE Upgrade: HP Imprint Finish/Microphone/Webcam
* – 40% off upgrade from 1GB (2 Dimm) to 2GB (2 Dimm)!
* – 200GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (100GB x 2)
* – FREE Upgrade - LightScribe DVD+/-RW w/Double Layer
* – Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network w/Bluetooth
* – HP Expresscard TV Tuner for Windows Vista Notebook
* – High Capacity 8 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
* – Microsoft® Works 8.0
* – System Recovery DVD w/Windows Vista Ultimate
* – HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope

I plan in the end on dual booting with Vista and Linux. I'm just curious with these specs, will I be able to install any distro? It would be awesome if the wireless internet worked, and the webcam too. Any ideas? Id love to be able to put x64 architecture to use and also if stuff worked right after install without drivers that would be good.

Thanks!

Nothing looks too bizarre though I know pretty much nothing about webcams and linux. I have the same wireless in my thinkpad. It was detected without any tweaking in ubuntu and with my slax liveCD. I had to install the ipw3945 package for it to work in Arch, but that was all it needed.

I'm finding my laptop to be not a whole lot different to setup than my desktop, with some tweaking needed for some of the power control and I haven't gotten suspend to disk quite working yet. So at least from my experience I'd recommend just sticking with whatever distro you like anyway. It probabaly wouldn't save a lot of time to switch distros just to get some hardware to work when you then have to spend time figure out the the differences with an unfamiliar or less comfortable distro. That being said I was impressed with ubuntu for having a lot of things working right away, enough that I was a little tempted to switch back from Arch.

use debian its the best
about detecting hardware , etc..
all this stuff is easy
but Debian is stable and kool Dist.
also Ubunto based on debian .

i have Dell inspiron Laptop , and i use Debian to dual boot with Windows

Ok that sounds cool! Out of curiosity, which distro is best for some of those cool graphical effect things (like i've seen rotating desktops, cubic desktops, fading, transparency, warping, etc)

if you are looking for that grphical things u want , you can use Kubunto
it has the cubic screen ,etc..

On my laptop (also fairly modern), Ubuntu is the only distribution in which the wireless worked without any fuss.

If I were you I would Just install my favorite Distro on the Laptop.. (In my case that would be Debian)

Check here for info on configuring your Hardware to work in Linux, and to see if there are any known show-stoppers.
http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/hp.html

ye Ubunto is the only Dist has auto detection for the New Wireless Cards .
but you can Install and get your Driver working on any Dist. in 5 minutes without any problems

Ubuntu 6.10 has better wireless support than 7.04 in my opinion. 6.10 was GREAT! I have not managed to get 7.04 working so am trying different distros.

Linux MINT may be worth a try. It is the only distro which used 915resolution to set my screen resolution on my laptop to 1280 x 800 without having to change anything.