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Doing some research I was leaning towards buying an inexpensive laptop and either install linux or buy one already installed (maybe Debian or Ubunutu). The uses for this laptop would be for developing linux device drivers and having the option to control the OS for any customized applications which I could develop....Didnt want to go the dual boot with Windows approach.

Thoughts opinion....on this approach?

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It sounds like you've already decided to not dual boot, but have a dedicated machine running Linux. What is your question? – Thomas Owens Aug 1 '11 at 16:41
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IMHO this is more a question to SuperUser, or the Linux forum. – Péter Török Aug 1 '11 at 16:41
Already familiar with linux so to cut to the chase getting a linux laptop with linux installed or purchasing one and installing it myself. I am newbie for developing linux drivers and apps so this machine would be use for these purposes. Already have a windows based machine. – user576979 Aug 1 '11 at 16:44
Again.. what is your question? I don't think that you're suppose to post opened ended, non-specific questions like. "what is your thoughts on this thing I'm already decided on doing" – user606723 Aug 1 '11 at 16:58
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Under normal circumstances I'd answer: These are the days of virtualization. Choose your primary system and put all the others into virtual machines. Or have a VM-server and login to the OS you want with a thin client.

However, you want to program device drivers for linux, so a dedicated linux box is the way to go imho. Personally, I dislike dual boot, too. With VMs you won't have to restart the machine in order to boot into another OS. But you do suffer a performance penalty as well. These days it's mostly negligible, but it's still depending on what you will be doing with the other OS.

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