Building a (ROS compatible) Laptop-based robot; Could use some suggestions.

[GalacticNerd]

Hello there! Some of you might remember my Wifi Rover I built as my senior project in highschool.

Well, my next robot is a personal project. I got the idea when a friend told me about her breaking the screen on her netbook. I've decided to buy it of her, remove the screen, and just use it as a robot brain. What I want to do is have it on a differential drive base. I was thinking about connecting an arduino to it over USB, but I'm not sure if connecting it normally could be used to send data to the arduino while it's running a program as opposed to just reprogramming it? That's something I haven't done before, so any info about that kind of communication would be helpful. Anyway, the Arduino would process that data, and control 2 continuous rotation servo's. Good idea? Or can the Arduino be skipped altogether? Ofcourse it would be handy to have incase I want other sensors beside the main webcam I've decided to use.

So about software, what should I install on there? I'm aware of ROS, and I would love to get it compatible, and use it as a learning experience? Does it have what I need? http://nootrix.com/2012/04/ros/

rosserial