Buying a new laptop, what works well?

[Jim Richardson <warlock@eskimo.com>]

I am looking to buy a new laptop to replace my slightly aging Fujitsu
lifebook, (which will soldier on as a route/firewall...) I was wondering
if anyone has suggestions on a good choice with the following criteria

14-15" active matrix at least 1024x768 res.
256+MB ram possible.
Modular optical drive bay preferred.
Decent battery life.
Video well supported under Debian (I am assuming that I will be using
2.4 kernel and XFree4.x)
Firewire, USB and IrDa ports. That's pretty much it.
 I have looked at the Winbook Z1, nice machine, is the Ati mobility
chipset supported? It seems to be the most common one on the high end
laptops. 
 Thanks

-- 
Jim Richardson
	Anarchist, pagan and proud of it
WWW.eskimo.com/~warlock
	Linux, because life's too short for a buggy OS.