thank you for the quick responses. yeah, i've used suse before on my laptop but didnt even think about trying to install that on the laptop. i was trying to stay away from rpm-based solutions, but i will no doubt use them if i can't find another distro that suits my needs. thanks again!

btw i have an xp 2000/radeon (newer, i'm not sure which model) vid card

cheers

1st instance of laptop = workstation