Well, I finally broke down and bought a new notebook... an HP nc4000. The Omnibook 500 was finally starting to fall apart. There are a couple of things about the new machine that still annoy me, but I think I'm going to end up liking it.

I've started a Debian on the nc4000 web page to detail my experiences getting it working well with Debian. Just getting started, really, but feel free to keep an eye out there if you're curious.