I have latest Debian Sarge on laptop, it runs perfectly, I picked it among 20
different distros as most reliable one. What I would do is try to read reviews,
make sure hardware is supported and test out every version by acctually
installing them, most of them have ftp install, where you can install only basic stuff very fast if you have DSL or Cable. LiveCD is not the best way to
properly test the OS to meet you needs.