Buying debian compatible laptop.

["Joona Kiiski" <joona.kiiski@gmail.com>]

Hello everyone,

I've been using debian a couple of years (still a newbie for most of
you hackers, though), but never installed it in laptop. Soon I'm
buying a new laptop and want to make sure it works smoothly with
debian.

I assume the biggest problem is the screen controller. I tried to take
a look at debian's and X.org's documentation, but didn't find a clear
answer which screen controllers work cleanly with debian (and X.org)
and which not.
In the past:
* ATI's drivers were a big problem (is that still the case?)
* Nvidia drivers worked (at least after installing closed source
drivers manually) (is that still the case?)
* I've heard that Intel GMA should just work (is that the case?)

Are there any other possible critical hardware incompatibilities (fx.
with sound system, dvd-drives, ethernet cards etc.) I should know
about

Any advice is welcome,

Thanks,

Joona Kiiski