It's not hard to find desktops that work well with Linux. However it is much harder to know which laptops will work without fault on say a Debian or Red Hat system. I recently ran into an issue with Intel GMA hardware on a Dell D420, after being reassured by most forums that it had no hardware issues with the current kernel that Debian uses. (Kernel 2.6.30 however works great, btw)
What resource would you recommend to quickly, easily, and accurately know what hardware will work well with a particular distribution? Or is it always a hit or miss approach?