The monks have given you lots of good advice here. Personally I'm sort of biased towards SuSE as well since that's what I started with.

That being said, I've had SuSE on my laptop for quite a few versions, but I've never been able to get it to "plug and play" my D-Link wireless card. So whatever distro you choose you might want to check in to which wireless cards it supports so you don't run in to the same issues I have.