It was a long time since I installed debian on my laptop. Unsupported hardware issues dogged it the last time I tried it on this (which seems years back). But this time, it was really worth giving a shot.
I found Debian sleek, more nostalgic than any other present distribution. It is probably the best distribution to work with.
But the old kernel that is shipped with etch had some ACPI related issues. And sound wasn't there. I had to download and compile the latest Kernel after which everything is good.