Linux

Hey guys, i use my mac laptop and i love it, but i have decided its time to break the mold and use linux, and since linux on macs suck, i need to know what kind of pc to build... I want to know what kind of motherboard, wireless cards, hard drives, laptops, video cards, and etc. people have had success with, please name your distro and other specs... what im trying to accomplish here is by making this laptop, i can make a machine that i will have minimal issues with, and be able to get the absolute most out of it in terms of features and etc. Im pretty much going to be using it for internet stuff, so the wireless card is a biggie, also, some graphics and lots of music... and as one last thing, im thinking arch linux for it... but please post your input on the subject and help me switch to linux!

Without any information about what your budget and intended uses are, it's hard to say anything definitive. The main compatibility problems people seem to continue to report are with wireless cards and display cards, so watch out for those. Generally ATI and nvidia display cards both work well, but some models much better than others. For wireless, it's even more tricky because many manufacturers don't seem to be able to stick to any specific chip set, but on the other hand, more and more laptops come with wireless on the motherboard anyway, and (as far as I can tell) most of these work acceptably under Linux.

Bottom line, I'd suggest you approach this from the other direction: find a machine you like, figure out what's inside, and see if you can google any problems with that particular combo of hardware before you put down the money.

Have you considered just using VMware or Parallels or Virtual Box?