[ale] Dell laptop - recommendations?

[griffisb at bellsouth.net]

Hey all,

   I'm considering picking up a Dell laptop from Dell Financial Services off e-bay. My sister writes grant proposals and is in need of a desktop or laptop. So I was thinking of spotting one for her.

   What would you use as a basic spec machine for writing grant proposals? I was thinking of installing Knoppix to the hard disk, and running the most current OpenOffice, and just set up Konqueror and KMail for Internet stuff.

   Are there drivers for the modem? Is KPPP fairly straight-forward? Any models I should absolutely avoid? I might also see what IBM has to offer, but the budget is limited.