Honestly, no computer I've ever tried to run linux on has given me any trouble. A device here and there, sure, but never anything I couldn't live without. Certified hardware is a nice guarantee, I guess, but you're just as well off finding a laptop you like, and then hitting google to find out how compatible it is.

If you're not hung up on having brand new hardware, you can probably find a nice, second-hand thinkpad. Given their popularity with grey-beards, they're known to be quite compatible in general.

Hello,

I have a computer that isn't compatible with many Linux distributions. It works with Ubuntu 10.04, but you have to compile the wireless adapter driver, and that is a pain. And when I try to upgrade to the newest version of
Ubuntu, my computer croaks. I can revert to using Windows, but I enjoy learning about Linux and mainly came to love it just from reading about the developers of the C programming language and their Unix antics. My favorite computer program is called "fortune," which keeps me occupied for hours at a time. And I love Firefox and OpenOffice and think open-source software increases the development of interesting and offbeat software.

Should I get a "Certified Linux" laptop?

Thanks,

Lee

Things have gotten alot better lately, as a rule of thumb though:

1) Make sure the wireless chipset is from Intel (Atheros works aswell allthough you might have to install the drivers yourself, broadcom has been a real problem in the past but has supposedly improved their support in the last few years (I havn't tested it so i'd consider them a bit of a gamble still)
2) Make sure the GPU is from nvidia or intel (avoid AMD, they have a bad habit of dropping support extremely early for their mobile chipsets and while they are generous with documentation for the opensource community the quality of the opensource driver is still way too far behind, if you want to use an opensource driver Intel is the sanest choice and if you don't mind proprietary drivers nvidia has by far the highest quality driver and longest support for it).

I've never had any issues with bluetooth, webcams, etc so i'm not sure which manufacturers to avoid there (I've also only ever bought 2 laptops, one was certified but had a AMD GPU (which meant that after ~1-2 years i was unable to upgrade the distribution if i wanted decent 3D support since AMD decided to drop support for the chipset and not provide drivers for newer kernels / x.org versions), The other is not certified but worked just fine out of the box and since it only has components from companies with good trackrecords (The only proprietary driver i use for it is for the nvidia GPU and thus far they've been excellent (They just updated their Linux/BSD/Solaris drivers for GeForce2 Ti (from 2001) for example so that it will work with the upcoming x.org 7.7, while AMD dropped support for R520 GPUs in 2009 (only 3 years after the last models were released), Assuming nvidia keeps the same level and duration of their support for newer gpus their lack of good opensource drivers should be pretty much irrelevant for pragmatic Linux/BSD/Solaris users (The opensource nv driver seems to handle 10 year old GPUs well and at that age its unlikely that you'll use such an old GPU in a system where 3D performance is very important anyway).

If you intend to dualboot you might aswell buy a Windows laptop and just check the components to make sure everything works well. (If you don't plan on running Windows at all then you have to shop around a bit (it is possible to save a bit of cash by skipping Windows but some Linux laptops are just as expensive as the equivalent Windows models, sometimes even more expensive.