SANS training course | laptop requirements?

[fear_nothing]

So has anyone attended a SANS training course lately? I'll be attending one at the end of the month, but I'm curious about the laptop requirements. Here they are:

http://www.sans.org/twincities04/laptop.php?tid=16

Here's the deal, should I run XP as a base and Linux in a vmware session or vice versa? My distro has always been mandrake, but it doesn't always seem to play nice with my IBM a30p laptop. Battery life sucks, the power management works occasionally & the remote desktop tool sometime crashes my X session. Overall Linux runs OK on this machine, Nessus, Nmap, ethereal, VMware all work great on this Cross Over office also works good.

They recommend Redhat for commonality, but ever since they starting making KDE look just like Gnome I've never been much of a fan.

I might just lug along two laptops??

Thoughts?

Thanks