The Ubuntu install was pretty straight forward. I had to use 'linux noapic' at the boot prompt, but everything else was just a matter of following the menu choices.

When I rebooted and started X for the first time it was slow and the resolution was messed up (it was trying to use 1280x1024 on the wide-screen 1280x800 display). Also
the touchpad was not responding (turning the pad of for a few seconds and then back on fixed this).

I rebooted the system and selected the 'recovery mode' at the GRUB menu and used 'apt-get' to install the nVidia drivers (see the URL at below for help with this).
That fixed the X problems.

There don't seem to be any Linux drivers for the internal Broadcom WLAN, but using ndiswrapper (ndiswrapper.sf.net) and the Windows XP drivers from the 'Application and Driver Recovery DVD' that came with the laptop I was able to get it working perfectly.

I'm still having problems with the touchpad. It works, but I have to do the off/on routine that I mentioned earlier each time I reboot the system. Probably just some XF86Config settings I'll need to tweak. Older versions of Knoppix detect the pad as a PS/2 mouse and it works fine.

An excellent Ubuntu-howto can be found at:
http://www.ubuntuguide.org
I highly recommend it. There are easy-to-follow instructions for getting Ubuntu tweaked to your liking.

Over all, it seems to work quite well with Linux. It takes a bit of tinkering, but it's worth the effort :)