@cecilia
Regarding Linux, I humbly suggest using SuSE Linux distribution. It's very user-friendly (GUI's for most setup things) if you're not into shellbashing, got really nice manuals, and even got an old version of UAE on it (as a choise when installing.) which is simple to upgrade. It supports a vast majority of graphics cards and I've run it on several different laptops with excellent results.
And if that works on a laptop, win2K works on it too. (like mine.