reposted from my entry on linlap
So far I have tried three distros with mine. Ubuntu and Kubuntu 10.10, and OpenSUSE 11.3.
Most things just work, especially with Ubuntu and Kubuntu. OpenSUSE is a pain with the wifi, and currently OpenSUSE has a bug which requires you to downgrade your NVidia drivers to prevent floating point exceptions. Any version of Linux will have issue with the trackpad, you will not be able to adjust certain parameters as it isn’t identified properly… there is no known fix.
OpenSUSE: (11.3)
The only way to get a bootable USB is to use the SUSE Studio Imagewriter. Simply no way around that.
When installing make sure that ACPI is set to off. You’ll see a function key for that. Also type in nomodeset on the line for boot arguments. If you try using Failsafe, it will introduce worse problems with the wifi and introduce several other anomalies into the installed OS. Seeing as wifi will not work out of the box, you will want an ethernet connection handy. Be sure during config to add the packman repo, which is available under the option for community repos. That will give you access to the appropriate wifi driver. When first booted in, run updates FIRST. Then after updates are done and you have rebooted go into Konsole (the CLI) and type “uname -a”. This will tell you what kernel you have, the line will look like this “Linux Frankensuse 2.6.34.7-0.7-default #1 SMP 2010-12-13 11:13:53 +0100 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux” .Note in the line how it says “default”, make note of that so you can select the correct wifi package.Go into YAST to install the package. You will want broadcom_wl and its affiliated package, which in my case has “default” as part of its name… there are four variations, they will cause trouble. Install those. Also install the patterns for kernel development and C/C++ development, those are important to the next step. Now reboot.
Next, you will want the NVidia drivers… DO NOT USE the ones in the repos, they will destabilize your system. Find the driver on NVIDIA.COM, version 256.53 is the version you want. Now, open Konsole, and go to root “su”. Navigate to the directory of your download (./Downloads) and type “sh” and the name of the package you downloaded… “sh NV*” Just let it do its thing, answering yes to any prompts. Done? Now reboot. And that should be it, everything should just work.
Ubuntu: 10.10
It just works, if not use boot arguments of nomodeset and acpi=off.
Kubuntu: 10.10
It just works, but it doesn’t like your ethernet. During install it will want to use your network to DL updates and such. Deselect any option that requires a network and you should be fine.