I am looking for a laptop to buy for college. Right now, I'm considering a Toshiba Satellite A215-S4807. I was curious, does anyone have experience installing some form of linux on a Toshiba Satellite A215? I checked http://www.linux-on-laptops.com/toshiba.html but the A215 was not listed.

Why would you buy a machine with Windows to try to figure out how to get Linux installed and working, when there are major manufacturers selling them off the shelf with Linux pre-installed now?

I have the A215-S7428. It has an AMD Athlon 64 processor. I've been running Linux Mint on it, which is an Ubuntu derivative. It runs fast, smooth, yet there are a few issues. I recommend searching Linuxquestions.org with keywords like "Toshiba," "wireless," "laptop," and "sound card." because the sound card won't work out of the box. Neither will the built in wireless device. It can be fixed easily with some installation.
Also, you may want to but won't have to install the restricted ATI graphics driver for 3D games and what not. I haven't gotten around to that yet as I am not into 3D games. This machine will run x86 systems or 64 bit editions of Gnu-Linux. I'm running an x86 just because there are more packages available.
Another alternative is to order a laptop new with Linux installed already. The wireless will work out of the box, the graphics will as well. You'll also get tech support with it. Another reason is that you won't be buying Microsoft at all. You'll be supporting the Open Source cause as well.