laptop for linux

I'm considering purchasing my girlfriend a new laptop for her bday/xmas.

I have one major requirement...

I must be able to dual boot it with linux.

What types/brands of laptops have AO members sucessfully loaded/run linux on?

Thanks for the advise in advance.

My price range is $1200-2000. I want it to last a couple of years and have all the bells and whistles that my desktop has. The less expensive, the better.

2+ghz
512MB RAM
CDRW/DVDROM
Integrated 10/100
Integrated w/less either 802.11b or g, but preferrably both
USB 2.0
Firewire
15inch XGA TFT
32-64MB Video

It will be used mostly for Office apps and internet use. But I want to be able to take it with me when I want to play an occasional video game and do anything else I really want to... within reason.

Everyone and everything I've looked at nobody seems to know if linux will work.
I'm lucky if they even know what linux is....

Maybe I'll just bring in a knoppix disk to see if it works in it... if knoppix can do it, then other distros will be able to too...

I bought a Compaq presario 2500 laptop and successfully dualbooted RH, Mandrake, and Suse on it with XP pro.

It is a P4 2.6, 512mb DDR ram, CD-RW/DVD-ROM, Floppy drive, USB 2.0, Firewire, 10/100 lan, 64MB ATI Video card and integrated 802.11g.

it also had the 15 inch XGA screen.

It cost me 1300 dollars and is still going strong, other than me dropping the AC charger and braking it. lol.

My experiecne with linux on the laptop was just the same as linux on a desktop. Everything worked great for me.

If you have any more questions let me know.

One other thing I might add,

Using Red hat 7.3, and Mandrake, the installer froze when it got to my Wireless card. Suse had no problems with it. But the earlier versions fo Mandrake and RH had problems there.

cheyenne1212:

Thanks for the info. I will add that to my short list of possibilities.

I have had a compaq before and didn't care for it too much. I didn't like how they setup the HD (with the save partition) and the system restore disks automatically create that at reload.

Also, the damn power supply connction to the motherboard broke after time and they wanted me to replace the whole motherboard (out of warranty) and they wanted to charge me $650 just for that.

If they changed the way the power suppy was since the 1200xl, then maybe I'll get it.