So far, the "netowrk auto-magic shit" to which you refer, has served me quite well. Maybe you should turn it off for servers, but if you're connecting through a wireless card, it seems to work quite well. Better than NetworkManager on Linux, I would even venture.

I'm typing this from OpenSolaris 2008.11 and I'm actually surprised how "desktop-friendly" Solaris has actually become. The default GNOME-based desktop is gorgeous and works well. Hardware support may not be all that broad, but when hardware is supported it's REALLY supported: even booting off the live CD, my Atheros wireless card, NVidia 3D card and crappy on-mobo sound were "auto-magically" detected and set up. Performance is also quite snappy, even on my aging Athlon XP 3000+ with a measly 1 GB of RAM. In short, OpenSolaris is more than up to the task of working on Toshiba's new laptops.

If VIA offered an IGP that didn't get blown out of the water by even a crappy old Intel GMA950...