Stay away from Dell as well. More in-depth information on my hellish attempt to install linux on a Lattitude LS can be found here, but here's a quick summary:

1) Dell puts a hidden partition on all of their machines that fdisk/diskdruid cannot rewrite without fscking the whole disk. What lives on the partition? A program called "zztop".

2) Dell "upgraded" the BIOS on the LS series. The "upgraded" bios broke sound support on Linux, which worked fine with the older revision.

3) When I called Dell and found out about the hidden partition (which I wiped to install linux), they offered to send me a new harddrive. I asked them to send me a virgin blank one without windows on it. They agreed, and a week later I had a new hard drive.With the fskcking hidden partition on it. Again.

So the moral of this story is, "Dell laptops bite ass". Or the moral could be "I'm really drooling over my coworkers VAIO".

BlueLines

Disclaimer: This post may contain inaccurate information, be habit forming, cause atomic warfare between peaceful countries, speed up male pattern baldness, interfere with your cable reception, exile you from certain third world countries, ruin your marriage, and generally spoil your day. No batteries included, no strings attached, your mileage may vary.