I really want to put linux on my Thinkpad A31, but looking into it, it seems that there are not propritary drivers for the video card. This is quite a hold up for me, because my 2 main uses for this laptop (besides web browsing) are gaming and Video (divx/dvd) playback. My primary concern is that i'd like to be able to use the S-Video output for watching movies and such on TV as i dont own a dvd player other then the ones on my computers.

I know that DRI drives are available for the card, but how well do they work for gaming (threw cedega mostly) and is there any way to get my S-Video out to work.

Actually if you follow the links from ATI's website through the Drivers and Software with notebooks. You would see that the links split. One takes you to Windows 2000, which says the drivers are available for notebooks directly from your manufacturer. Which in IBM's case, just might be the case for Linux drivers, this isn't Dell we are talking about here.* The second split goes to the normal "Radeon 8500+" section, which leads me to believe you don't need an 8500+, necessarily, to use those propietary drivers.

As FYI #1, Novell and IBM have worked together to make SuSE work fantastically on IBM notebooks. IT even runs all your hotbuttons and has the same config programs as in windows, so I would start with that distro.

*Just for reference, checking out the IBM website, they have drivers for linux, including bios update utilities for your A31 Thinkpad. Tell me they don't support linux! Huzzah IBM! They have troubleshooting, tools, and all sort of other stuff for linux as well, most of which is built right in to SuSE, actually.

I think you will be fine one way or the other with Linux, especially if you go with SuSE.

Thank you very much redshirt! You made me very glad that i have an IBM. I'm not to famiure with suse, but i will try it out for sure.