I recently bought a Gericom Masterpiece Per4mance 2400 notebook. I was a little afraid of how well it would work with linux, as a friend's notebook computer had a completely broken bios, the network card didn't work properly, and even the PCMCIA network card sometimes gave warnings and errors. However, I was really surprised how easy and flawlessly everything (I need) works now. In the following I will put more emphasis on what is not working than on what is working, so this work might sound more negative than it is supposed to be. I'm completely satisfied with the laptop and can only recommend it (for the things I use it for).
I hope this short summary of my setup experiences can help you either with your decision which laptop to buy, or with setup questions if you already have that computer.
If you have any suggestions, additions, solutions, or even found errors, don't hesitate to mail me at reinhold@kainhofer.com.