Im gonning to be buying a laptop soon and wondering the following questions;

1) Does linux support Hot Swapping drives?
2) Does linux have support with most latops?
3) Can linux support Wireless Networking?
4) Can I use Knoppix Mandrake or Debian on a laptop?

I thinking of maybe getting an IBM T21 Notebook... - is this capable of Linux support as well?

Thanks...

I can't answer most of your questions but......
I think you should be able to run Linux on that laptop.

I have XandrOS Linux and RedHat 9 on an HP laptop. Knoppix and most other Live CD versions run great on it. This laptop has a 1 Ghz AMD processor and 512 Mb RAM. No problems at all with Linux. All hardware is detected and works great.

I also have Mandrake 9, ASP Linux 9, and XandrOS Linux on a Compaq Laptop. This one is older and is a 400 Mhz with only 96 Mb of RAM. It is slower but everything works great with no real problems.

I plan to try out Suse Linux soon as well as some Debian based distros other than Knoppix. When I decide on my favorite I will most likely stick with it.

to answer your questions
1) yes
2) don't know which laptops are supported
3)yes
4)depends on your type of laptop, but most likely yes

short answer:

1) no idea
2) yes
3) yes
4) yes

long answer:

a bit of reading up will give you details

I've had nothing but Linux installed on my Laptop, both Mandrake 9.0 and Slackware 9, until you try it you won't know for sure. Some tips:

Search for the subjects you mentioned on this site. Its my first port of call when I have a problem.

Try the Linux Documentation Project: www.tldp.org

Search google for linux related questions at: www.google.com/linux

Check out Linux on Laptops at: http://www.linux-laptop.net/

Cheers
Amos

Slackware-9.1 on a Dell Inspiron 5150, works great. Laptops and linux go pretty well together.