Linux on Acer Aspire AS5630 - 6368

I'm planning to buy the Acer 5630 - 6368 laptop this evening or tomorrow.
futureShop.ca Acer

I intend to make it a dual-boot laptop.
1) Is this Acer laptop linux friendly?
2) What distros would work fine on this laptop?
3) Will the built in webcam and mic work in Linux mode? Driver for them available anywhere?
4) Any dedicated links for information on this?

Thanks in advance.

 

I'm no Linux guru but I can say that the Acer looks good. Don't know about the webcam though; the mic should be ok.

 

It should work pretty well.
1) Because of the Centrino branding, it has an Intel wireless chipset, so that will work natively in Linux, and usually quite well.
2) I use Kubuntu on my machine, which is generally one of the better supported distros in the community, and has good hardware compatibility in general (and specifically with most of the devices spec'd in that laptop)
3) Good question. The mic will probably work since it seems like it's AC'97 sound, and Intel has a good record of open-source support. The webcam, that's another issue. I haven't even tried seeing if mine works though
4) Google "Acer 5630 Linux" and see what pops up? You might also see if you can get the datasheet for that model from Acer and see what camera chip it's using, and if it'll be Linux compatible.

 

Yeah, that notebook is pretty much Linux friendly. You should be able to get most things to work...and the things that aren't immediately supported, you can get up and running soon. Make sure the Acer has a dedicated button for the Bluetooth radio. This is a problem with Acers...I can't get mine to run, since it's been defaulted to off.

 

I just bought it. Thanks guys from your posts it seems that it is linux friendly.
Gautam: What u mean by dedicated Bluetooth radio button.