Well I got a Compaq Presario 15.4″ Widescreen Notebook PC (V6120US) CPQ V6120US as my christmas gift this year from my mom, she paid for about 400 of it and I had to cover the cost of the rest (which was close to 600 dollars). I wish I had done more research about linux on this system. I started tonight by install Debian Etch amd64. The install was really quick. In under 30 mins I had a fully installed debian system. The problem was that it would lock up if the system beep was triggered, or if I tried to start X as a user instead of as root, or if I tried to boot the box in any other run level than single user mode. Next I gave Ubuntu 6.10 a shot both the i386 and the amd64. Both system had the same problem, just randomly locking up for no good reason. Next on to Fedora Core 6 both i386 and x86_64. The i386 was a huge waste of ime, it was constantly locking up, it was lucky to even boot. The x86_64 was just as bad, I managed to get it to boot every time into single user mode but when trying to boot to init 3 with gdm turned off it will lock in a diff spot every time. I went in to init 1 and turned off every service I could think of but it still locked in a diff spot every time.
My advise is this: If you plan to use linux on this system, please dont waste your money
Over this weekend I will be trying to find some Open Source OS that will run, but Im not keeping my hopes up. I refuse to use windows on this box so if I dont have any luck getting linux working Im gonna try to sell this thing and get a 32 bit system. As of right now I feel like I took about 1000 bucks and flushed it down the crapper. Had I gone with a 32 bit system I would have been able to score one hell of a system I think… If you have any hints on what can be done to get this system working please feel free to comment and let me know. Thanks.