To explain some of the choices made in this document, I want you to know that I did not buy this laptop for gaming or serving web pages. I bought my Armada originally to write (and compile) code, specifically Java, and take it with me on trips to various labs (I work as a bio informatician) around Europe. Therefore I also needed it to let me do presentations, fill in some spread sheets, read Microsoft Word documents and, to get me through many tedious hours at airport terminals, play DVDs.

As a developer I am not completely free to choose my own tools. I cannot decide to go for GNU Classpath for my Java developing and my colleagues need me to use Eclipse. My desktop has to suggest a minimum level of professionality, and while I'm working I do want to be able to do my email and calendar by clicking icons, not by typing commands. So no Blackbox or Mutt, but KDE and Kontact. I also need OpenOffice and Sun's Java 1.5.

If you're not using KDE, you'll have to replace some of the tools I mention here with the ones for your window manager.