look out, hell is freezing over, Im considering buying a laptop.

If I do it will be transported to work and back and plugged in at both ends, so battery life is not that important. It does need to be portable, as cheap as possible without sacrificing reliability and capapble of running Ubuntu Linux or some other equally capable distro.

if it were pre-installed with Linux that would be even better, but I figure is less likely to happen.

it wont be taxed much, mainly open office, Lyx, Latex and perhaps the odd DVD.

any recommendations at all greatfully received.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119776 and possible get the extra 512mb of ram as suggested in the comments.

My experience of linux on acer lappys is that they work pretty much out of the box, the only thing that might cause headaches for a short time is getting the widescreen resolutions to work.

Other than that Ive bought 4 acer laptops for myself and other people and we all seem very happy with them

If you dont go for this one Id still reccomend getting a 14.1" one for the sheer ease of portability.

For plain jane officey type stuff and DVD, Id heartily recommend a 2-4 y/o refurbed corporate Thinkpad or Dell Latitude. Processor speed matters little. 256mb will do all you likely need, but if ya can get 512mb of ram, itll make OOo happier.

Acers can be good as well. The more common the lappie, the better the chance that all the bits will work out of the box. With my 4 y/o Dell, it was just a matter of install, tweak network manager, and surf away.

http://tuxmobil.org/reseller.html <- Ultimate buyers guide for pre-installed Linux laptops.

There is one  company Ive seen that does a one-year free Ubuntu support contract with all their laptops, but Ive forgotten their name... :?