installing Ubuntu on a Laptop

u can install basically any linux distribution on any laptop/pc but there is no guarantee that everything will work.

soundcards, webcams, wifi, bluetooth, cardreaders and some other "minor" hardware is sometimes hard to get to work. sometimes impossible.

u can tell us the brand, model and chipset of ur hardware and we can try and tell u if it will work and how

The two laptops I like are the Dell Studio15 and the Dell 1525 Inspiron both with Intel GM/CM 965 chipsets.

i looked a bit around and it is pretty hard to say how well these too laptops will work with linux because it is hard to find the chipset of the individual parts and their ids and apparently these too models ship with a bunch of different wifi cards so it is impossible for me to tell which wifi adaptor u will have..

sorry that i cant help more with ur problem. maybe someone else can though

cheers
Nikolas

Many thanks Nikolas for your help.I will not be using wifi on the laptop.I have also looked for the chipsets but cannot find any more info.

I think the best thing to do is to boot to the Live Desktop version of the CD. Choose the option ''Run Ubuntu without making changes to my System"

This will allow you to check to make sure that all the components of the laptop and identified and work properly. When you are satisfied that everything is working and is supported, you can then install Ubuntu by clicking the install icon on the desktop.