I'm shopping around for a barebones laptop onto which I would like to load the linux kernel. Does anyone have any advice as per what I might want to look for? Is there hardware which is ideal for Linux, and preferable for longevity sake? Presently I'm looking at IBM thinkpads...

I would go for a generic, rather than name brand. My own laptop is a DFY30 Put together and supported by a local computer shop. If anything breaks, I don't have to worry about proprietary hardware.

I don't know if, when you say barebones, you mean cheap, or if you mean just the basics with no bells and whistles. If you're after cheap, there's loads of cheap, and admittedly old, laptops on ebay. I got a laptop with an intel celeron 500 mhz, 64 mb ram, 2 gig hd, cdrom, floppy and usb port for £40 (think that's probably about $70?... if you're in the states), but i haven't yet installed linux on it, although from accounts i've read of people installing linux on the exact same machine, I'm hoping it won't be too much of an issue... (famous last words!).

Can't be of any more help, but I thought I'd put that one out there just in case

Ther are a lot of laptops on which you can install linux without to many problems. For instance Ubuntu supports a lot of them. If they are cintrino most thinks will work even often the mouse pads. I recntly bought a verry small averatic and almost everything workes. I have an apple with ubuntu same story. I have an acer with Ubuntu , works fine.

The trouble are mostly from modems, special keytops a.s.o.
Here you can find a lot of information about laptops and linux.....
http://www.linux-laptop.net/ (there are more sites with info about laptops)

Have a lot of fun,

CloudBuilder