No guaranties for what follows.
Well, I did use my Advent 6417 laptop and software demanding the X server to work properly to write this and upload it, so you may still trust me.

HARDWARE
The Advent 6417 is a nice laptop :

Distribution
SuSE 7.3 Pro with XFree86 4.1
SuSE 8.0 Pro with XFree86 4.2

SuSE 7.3
INSTALLATION
Distribution : SuSE 7.3 Pro with XFree86 4.1
At first boot on the DVD, press F5 to select the lovely 1024x768 video mode. Select reiserfs to format Linux partitions (see note). Keep the other OS provided for the moment, as it does come out usefull to use some harware.
I do not advise you to set up a standard user right now, as this will allow root to log on terminal.
With 27Gb you can really install all the packages (everything is on the DVD).
You can really install LILO on the hard drive, there is no problem.
When everything freezes (see note) switch it off
At reboot on the hard drive, refuse to install X11
When everything freezes again (see note) switch it off
At second reboot on the hard drive, refuse again to install X11
When you can log on, as root (if you did not do as advised, you will fail to log in as root but still be able to su) do:
   ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/XFree86 /var/X11R6/bin/X
and in the file /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/xinit/xserverrc put
   X -xf86config /etc/X11/XF86Config :0
Here is an example /etc/X11/XF86Config for a UK keyboard and a USB external wheel mouse
You may want to edit the fonts paths to acomodate our distribution.
Reboot.
You can startx or start in runlevel 5 or init 5 to have the nice video mode and start create users (useradd does not do all its job with SuSE 7.3, you may want to use Yast2), set up the sound with alsaconf, etc...

APM works by itself with no additional setting. You don't actually need to set the SUID on /usr/bin/apm if you want a user to suspend as just closing the laptop does a suspend.

Note on SiS hardware on Avent 6417:
If the X server is not configured properly, when it gets killed, or when you swith from video mode to a test-mode terminal (I agree they are really lovely on this type of hardware) e.g. by pressing Ctrl+Alt+F[1-6] or when you want to record some sound, the display freezes and so does pretty much everything else. To log out from the X server, select log out from whatever menu and switch it off when everything freezes. As you have formatted as reiserfs your Linux filesystem(s) you will not have to endure the pain off a long fsck. I have not lost very important data so far, but you should really sync before you log off just to make sure.
Uncomplete list of commands you then should not use:
sax, sax2, rec, XF86Setup, SuperProbe

SuSE 8.0
No major problem.
You will have to install with the CD because the DVD can not be read on some hardware, including this kind of laptop. SuSE know about it.
If you use an external mouse with the mouse pad disabled under X, the the keyboard freezes when touching the mouse pad after a suspend (which is always likely). You can overcome this by puting this service script in /etc/init.d/ and enabling it with Yast2.

The author
A completely self taught user of Linux who studied physics and used to work as such thanks to Linux but not on Linux. This is my first laptop. Job offers welcome.