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If so which version please?

Toshiba Satellite L500D 4GB ddr2 and a Realtek RTL8181SU wifi usb 2.0 card

i'm just double checking beacuse

http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/toshiba.html says i cannot

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The site does not say you cannot, but that no one has tried with that model yet... – akid Apr 13 '10 at 22:26
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4 Answers

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It's very easy to tell by booting off of a "live" Linux CD. If you get booted up OK, just check that everything you expect to work, works. If all is OK, then you can install Linux permanently.

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thanks thats actually a very good idea :) – s32ialx Apr 13 '10 at 22:19
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In practice that's very difficult, since you have to run tests on things that it may not be practical to run tests on. For example, testing wireless networking is difficult if you don't have a network to connect to. There may be sporadic problems: for example many graphics drivers fail when resuming from suspend, but not consistently. Unfortunately I don't know of an up-to-date and relatively complete list of laptop compatibility. I also don't have a thorough rundown checklist of things that should be tested to see if a laptop does actually work under a given live CD. Does someone else? – intuited Apr 13 '10 at 22:41
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Huh... everythig should run fine on that computer. Even Vista!

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yes it comes with Vista-HP and a free upgrade to Win7-HP but when i installed Mandriva Spring 2010 the wifi nore the nic vid sound worked. – s32ialx Apr 13 '10 at 22:04
@s32ialx - I would take that upgrade to W7, since it's a lot more responsive than Vista. Also, another option for using Linux on your Laptop is to use VirtualBox or VMWare Player. Use Linux when you want, and W7 when you need to (like watching Netflix...). – Joe Internet Apr 14 '10 at 1:05
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Clearly, a live CD is by far the best way to test the compatibility of a computer. Toshiba ones are known to be very good for Linux Compatibility.

When I was shopping for my own computer, I went with a Ubuntu CD right in the store. And I was looking for Intel chipset to ease the wireless connection. This was the best way to ENSURE Linux would run on my laptop. I ended up buying a Toshiba because it passed all tests, and it was a brand name I knew would be reliable.

One store did not let me test their laptops with my Linux CD. I simply told them 'Hasta la Vista", no pun intended.

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It almost certainly will run and run well. In general. You might have problems with something specific (perhaps the kernel doesn't have a good driver for you network card, or the drivers for the graphics card are a little slow in 3D operation). As Marnix said, try some live CDs like Ubuntu, Knopix, Slax, and so on.

If the current stable versions have trouble, try newer ones (the current betas of Ubuntu 10.04, for instance, are likely to support some newer hardware that the last LTC release (08.04) does not). The same for if you have had problems in the past. On one motherboard I have very little of around the time of Ubuntu 08.10 would but from LiveCD/InstallCD (I cant remember which others I tried but it was a few, though Debian/Stable of that era installed and ran fine and Puppy booted off the LiveCD too), but 9.10 and the new 10.04 are fine. Presumably there was something odd on that board (or the way it was configured) that a particular range of kernel/tool-chain variants/versions didn't like but later ones resolved what-ever the problem was.

If you find one works well, then other distros/versions of around the same initial release date are likely too as well (as they will have similar Kernel and library versions and so forth), so you will have several to chose from.

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