Thank you all for your great feedback and advice. GWP, your comments are particularly helpful. As a person who was forced to buy XP by the OEM, I was interested in moving to Linux if it could deliver what I knew would be better overall performance on my laptop without degrading some of the features (power management, integrated wireless, funciton keys, back-up partition) that the laptop came with or requiring eleaborate work arounds and frustrating (for a newbie under tight work dealines) installs and re-installs. Sites like linux on laptops, etc. are amazing resources for how-tos, but before starting down one of those paths, it is extremely helpful to get feedback on general usability.

Thanks again -- and please keep sharing your experiences!

As a halfway step I have begun using StarOffice 7 / Open office on Windows XP. So far, so good, but I haven't had to do any particularly intensive work yet, so I will report as issues or successes arise.

Best,

MP