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Hi Chris, congratulations on your decision. I went from DOS and Windows to Linux and Mac OS X, but after a few months I returned to Linux for good (firing up Windows only to fill out the occasional MS Word form that looks weird in LibreOffice). You have already received a lot of good advice, so as well as adding my own 2 cents, I will try to take that into account. Which Linux? ____________ My guess is that coming from Mac OS, Ubuntu will be the Linux distribution you will feel most comfortable with. It is the most popular Linux distro these days anyway, so you can hardly go wrong with it. I have used it almost exclusively in recent years, and I find it worth mentioning that the Ubuntu community is helpful and friendly indeed. You will not often find arrogant BOFH responses in Ubuntu forums because all Ubuntu contributors have signed a very reasonable code of conduct <http://www.ubuntu.com/project/about-ubuntu/conduct>. As others have mentioned, you might want to try some Linux distributions and desktop environments in a virtual machine running on top of Mac OS X. VirtualBox is a popular and free, and works just as well the competition from VMware or Parallels. Which hardware? _______________ You may not need new hardware at all. Since the MacBook (Pro) is considered by many the best laptop (hardware), you may want to use it for Linux (and Windows, if you must) as well. The Ubuntu guide for people switching from Mac OS X contains some dual boot advice: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SwitchingToUbuntu/FromMacOSX I think it is fair to say that Linux runs on any laptop out there. If you want to make sure that every single feature is supported on the particular machine you have in mind, then take a look at the lists Chris Fitzpatrick provided (quoted below), or this one: http://tuxmobil.org/mylaptops.html Specifically for Ubuntu Linux, you will find compatibility reports on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport/Machines/Laptops which is now being replaced by this site: https://friendly.ubuntu.com/ I have installed Ubuntu on Asus EeePC netbooks, Dell laptops and desktops, and Fujitsu servers. Of these, the Dell computers have caused no trouble at all. I have also heard good things about Lenovo's Thinkpads. Enjoy! Christian On Wed, Dec 14, 2011 at 12:02:40PM -0500, Chris Gray wrote: > It's worth Googling a bit. There are places that sell laptops with > Linux pre-installed (which bypasses the Windows surtax on new PCs). > It was easy to find these but I can't vouch for any of them. > > http://mcelrath.org/laptops.html - Linux Laptop Resellers > > http://www.linux-laptop.net/ - Linux on Laptops > > http://www.linuxcertified.com/linux_laptops.html - Linux Laptop - > Fully Supported & Configured High Performance Linux Laptops and > Netbooks | LinuxCertified > > http://linuxpreloaded.com/ - Buy a Linux Computer -- Christian Pietsch <http://purl.org/net/pietsch> computational linguist, Bielefeld University, Germany