[ltp] Best distribution for an A30P = ?

[SOTL]

Hi All

I know that asking which is the best distribution is an easy way to 
start a flame war but that is exactly what I need to know.

I need to know which of the following three Linux distributions for an 
IBM A30P Thinkpad.
SuSE 10.1
Fedora Core 5
Mandriva  2006
I have exactly no interest in any other distribution, especially Debian, 
haven tried most on my desk top and failing to find anything that out 
weighs the disadvantage of their not being one of the excepted standards 
in the engineering and scientific technical world. To emphasize Ubuto is 
a great distribution but for serious technical types either Scientific 
Linux or Biological Linus would be a much more desirable choice. Since I 
do not travel in either of those circles Fedora or SuSE for me is a 
better choice depending on which I can make work on the laptop easiest. 
If neither one of these is doable then how difficult is it to install 
Mandriva 2006. If one can not install any one of these three easily then 
I will stick with my current distribution of Mandrake 10.1 which is now 
3 years old.

I have downloaded and installed Fedora Core 5 and installed it with 
results that have been forgotten since I did not keep records. I do know 
I was not impressed or I would not have moved on to SuSE.

For SuSE I have attempted to the commercial version and am not 
impressed. I do not have modem, eathernet, or wireless. Eathernet and 
wireless are understandable since I did not have access to either at 
time of installation but the issues with the modem exactly mirror a bug 
report I made on OpenSuSE 10.1 Beta 9 which was that a A30P has a win 
modem and the software for this modem was not being installed. I 
received a email back from the SuSE development team informing me that 
the win modem software is priperiatory   and would only be included in 
the commercial version that was the reason for the purchase of the 
commercial version. This does work under Mandrake 10.1 but then there 
are many more recent developments particularly in the realm of 
networking that were not developed at that level.

Mandriva 2006 commercial I have exactly no knowledge of.

Thanks for everyone consideration.

SOTL