Putting some serious thought into getting a Inspiron 1420N laptop with my new desktop PC this month. While I am sure Ubuntu is a capable linux distro I prefer to stick to my slackware roots (pun not intended). I was wondering if anyone has already crunched the numbers as far as compatibility between the pc and the os. I also welcome suggestions on other laptops of similar pricing.

For what it is worth, I had no hand whatsoever in picking out my laptop but I am running on a Toshiba A135-S4427. Price wise it seems about what the Dell is that you mentioned. It take me a little bit of tweaking to get everything working, but for the most part the really important stuff (wireless, graphics) 'just worked'. I carved up the drive (120gb) installed Slack 12 and haven't looked back. At this point the only issues that remain are the volume control via the external switch (it uses a sensor, not mechanical) and the fact that you eliminate the sound from external speakers when using headphones (or so I have read). I tried that out initially but since I am not a big headphone fan, it does not matter and have not attempted to work around the issue yet.

A link to the spec sheet is here:
[HTML]http://www.csd.toshiba.com/cgi-bin/tais/su/su_sc_modelLanding.jsp?ProductMenu_0=Portables&ProductMenu_1=Satellite&model_find=A135-S4527&ProductMenu_2=1700045&x=13&y=2&BV_SessionID=%40%40%40%400633341960.1187566864%40%40%40%40&BV_E ngineID=ccceaddlkeijeegcgfkceghdgngdgnn.0&moid=1700045&rpn=PSAD6U&smoid=true&ct=MH&ListType=Model[/HTML]