January 2007 

This is one great little laptop.  I'm coming off of an IBM Thinkpad X31 with SLED 10 which is now almost 4 years old.  I've had great usage from my Thinkpad, but HP is currently the linux laptop king. 

The hardware:

HP nc2400 ultra light laptop (QuickSpecs) RM075AW#ABA
Physicals:  2.8lbs, 0.976 (at front) x 11.1 x 8.38 in
Intel Core Duo U2500 processor 1.2GHz
1GB RAM 533MHz DDR2 (max 2GB)
60GB 4200-rpm hard drive (1.8" hard drive)
12.1" TFT WXGA 1280x800 display 
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 video card
ADI High Definition Codec audio
D VD/CD-RW combo drive
Broadcom gigabit ethernet networking
Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG wireless network
HP Bluetooth
TPM 1.2 embedded security chip
HP fingerprint sensor
Pointstick mouse
6 cell battery
65 watt Smart AC adapter (100-240 volt)
3 year warranty

HP says this machine is certified for SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10 (SLED 10) and Novell confirms this on their YES certified hardware site. 

 UPDATE 9-2007:  SLED 10 SP1 also works great on this system.

Installation 

Boot up to Windows XP and create the HP Product Recovery CD's.  If you ever want to reinstall Windows on your system you will need the CD's.  Mine took 9 CD's. 

I installed from a SLED 10 evaluation DVD (as I had my other systems).  I have never been able to resize a Windows partition and this time was no exception.  I ended up just blowing away the Windows and the HP service partition an utilizing the entire drive for linux.  Works for me. 

I opted to download updates and register at the Novell Customer Center during installation.  Both worked perfectly.

After the final reboot, the machine locked up at the GRUB logo.  I decided this was because of remnants of the Windows partitions.  I connected a USB floppy drive and my trusty Windows 98 Setup Boot Disk and booted up to DOS.  I did a "fdisk /mbr" a few times.  I went into fdisk and displayed the partitions and it looked ok.  I rebooted and the normal graphical SUSE boot menu appeared and the OS booted properly. 

Post-Boot Impressions
All devices were detected properly except the modem.  Even the wide 1280x800 monitor was detected and set properly including 3D and XGL/Compiz support.  Speed is about a 7 out of 10 for XGL decorations--very usable.  Even though this machine has a 4200rpm hard drive, it's pretty decent to boot and open programs.  The system fan is on, but the system seems pretty hot.  I will have to look into that.

Overall, the system is working great--don't hesitate to go SLED/openSUSE on this hardware!!