I was foolish enough to buy an HP Pavilion dv6000 laptop. I installed the Ubuntu Edgy distribution of GNU/Linux on it, that seeming to be the least horrible OS option. This laptop has various bits and pieces of hardware that don't like free software very much. Here are some things I found or discovered about how to make it work better.
  • Video drivers (Intel chipset, NVIDIA drivers)
  • Wireless Ethernet drivers (Broadcom 4311 chipset.) There seem to be conflicting schools of thought as to whether to run ndiswrapper, but for me that was the only thing that worked.
  • Connection sharing between a Mac and anything with built-in Ethernet (in case you need a way to install those wifi drivers.)
  • Sound drivers: coming soon once I figure out how to un-b0rk them.

    Another reason why I don't like this laptop are that the screen and keyboard are falling apart after only 6 months of moderate use. Not recommended!

    Eight months after buying the HP laptop, I now have a Dell Inspiron 1420 that came with Ubuntu pre-installed; everything works, and the battery even lasts longer than an hour. Why did I even bother?