Thought I would give an update. (in case someone is curious or is 
hanging on my results)

We ended up actually finding a IBM X24 laptop that was not in use by 
another professor here and will be using that instead. Sorry for those 
who were wondering how it would turn out! I'll have to try it another 
day.. :\  We've got SL 5.3 installed from a netboot disk in case anyone 
was wondering :)

Thanks again for all your suggestions!
-Chris

Chris Tooley wrote:
> Andy Mastbaum wrote:
>> Not the flagellate the subject any further, but it seems you'd want to 
>> put something minimal but with cutting-edge hardware support (i.e. 
>> netbook-specific)* on the netbook and SSH into the "real" 
>> computer/server that's running SL.
>>
>> A typical netbook isn't (and shouldn't be!) a reasonable 
>> computation/analysis platform... it's a mobile client. Just because you 
>> can, doesn't mean you should?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> *http://www.ubuntulinux.org/getubuntu/download-netbook
>>
> 
> Agreed, however, it would be mainly for familiarity purposes as well as 
> to have a relatively newer g++ on a stable system for driving external 
> hardware from the USB - this is not going to be used primarily as a 
> desktop system (i.e. it'll be running quietly in a black box somewhere) 
> and so we figured an EL would be a good way to go.  We decided on a 
> netbook because we wanted to have a whole computer in a small package - 
> including a display and keyboard for initial setup and transportation. 
> Granted, we could have chosen a larger or smaller nettop with a monitor 
> but then you have to cart 3 pieces of hardware (nettop, keyboard, 
> monitor) instead of one. A netbook seems to me to be the best solution.
> 
> Ubuntu linux and Fedora are good distros, and we might go with one of 
> them, but I would like to try out SL for Brads and giggles :) And hey, 
> if it works, all the better right? :)
> 
> Thanks,
> -Chris