well, i realize that you wont be doing anything fancy on this laptop, and it's probably just for academic purposes.
personally, in this case, i wouldn't spend my time trying to get some distro working when there already is one in; unless what you are doing is verrrrry rh-centric. just because the config scripts are placed differently, or the install files go in separate places, doesn't really warrant the shift. i assume you're more interested in "linux", than "redhat"?
p.s: i dont have suggestions on how to get an out-of-support distribution onto the machine.
