Even better is a Thinkpad running some flavor of GNU/Linux. They're well supported because well, frankly, they're incredible machines and hackers everywhere love them.
Back to the original Question: IMHO Thinkpads are very good and especially reliable Notebooks, but they also aren't cheap. When getting a Thinkpad then a T-Model most of the others don't differ that much from Notebooks sold by HP or Dell.
