I always recommend a 'generic' type laptop, purchased from a local independent business rather than a name brand like Dell HP, etc. You're much less likely to encounter really difficult harware problems. Furthermore, down the road when things wear out, you don't want to be trying to replace, eg., a proprietary cdrom/dvd writer.
I recently installed Debian Etch on an 'EnPower' laptop ... House brand for PC Club. Only problem I encountered was in getting the internal rt2500 wireless working, but I knew it was supported, and it was just a matter of messing around for a few hours. You are absolutely right to avoid ndiswrapper like the plague, but as long as you know the peripheral CAN be made to work with native Linux drivers, you'll eventually succeed.
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