Arch on the X61

I just took the plunge and converted my main lappy over to Arch, which means actually being able to use relatively new hardware with a minimalist framework.

My latest htop has the desktop humming at under 2% cpu utilization and only ~100mb RAM usage with gnome and monitors using consolekit, gdm, and the regular suite of vanilla gnome programs that run in the background and help out.

So for about 50mb of RAM overhead, that's automatic hotkey recognition and functionality for all the neat thinkpad stuff, simple audio and power management, and network manager has come a long way since the last time I tried it in Feisty Fawn.

with kernel support for intel drivers and the beta flash plugin, I'm actually able to watch fullscreen flash too, which can be notoriously difficult, but works like a dream after a few minutes of configuring my xorg.

Overall, if you're willing to take a half hour to configure things, gnome isn't anything like the resource hog it is on preloaded distributions. More major points for Arch.