After several years of being a satisfied user of the Mandriva Linux distribution, I've switched my laptop over to Ubuntu Linux.

The tipping point came when I couldn't get a VPN client to work on Mandriva, but Ubuntu just worked.

I had previously compared Mandriva and Ubuntu. Ubuntu looked as-good-as or better than Mandriva in every aspect except a couple of things: wireless and the laptop suspend/resume feature.

I still think Mandriva has better wireless tools out-the-box, but I 've since discovered that Ubuntu has a very nice wireless network applet, it just isn't installed by default (I suspect it will be in the future). I'm talking about Network Manager, a project to make networking "Just Work" on Linux. And for me, it did. It allowed me to easily browse and connect a wireless network, and also provided integrated support for the VPN connection I needed as well.

My other concern was that the suspend/resume cycle wouldn't work on my T20 laptop. By collaborating with some others on the ThinkWiki page for Ubuntu on the T20, the suspend problem has solved with a little effort, and some fairly simple instructions have been left for others who wish to run Ubuntu on this older, affordable laptop.

Overall, it seems the system now uses less than disk space, memory and processing power than it did before. (Some of that could be artifact of starting fresh rather an upgrading).

For now, I still run Mandriva on my desktop at work, and continue to help support several friends and family that I helped switch from Windows to Mandriva Linux. I'm sure my comparisions of Mandriva and Ubuntu are far from over!