I ended up buying a Compaq Presario 1200Z (900mhz Athlon, ATI Rage 
Mobility, 20gb drive, 128mb RAM, DVD/CD-RW combo drive, 14.1" TFT). 
Linux installed without any problems.  Enabling the 'Athlon' 
optimizations in the kernel made some things real flaky, though.  I'm 
guessing they haven't been set up to accomodate the Athlon 4 stuff yet. 
  Otherwise, everything works great under Linux.

Compaq alternately was helpful in telling me where to get drivers and 
completely boneheaded with the 'use the restore CD' response to trying 
to get new drivers after I reinstalled Windows.  I eventually gave up 
and got around them by downloading all the drivers and software for the 
1215US (same hardware, retail version) under Windows.

-- 
Michael Vieths
Email:  Foeclan at Winternet.com
Web:    http://www.geekbear.net

Marc Ohmann wrote:
> I just purchased a vaio for that exact purpose.  Its not an Athlon but 
> it is an 800 Duron and I am pretty impressed with the speed.  The 
> reinstal disk will reinstal windows and all the sony apps on the shred 
> drive.  Linux with 802.11b and apm installed without a hitch -- except I 
> can't run a Duron optimized kernel yet.
> 
> Marc
>