I've been building my own systems for a while. As long as you don't get the absolute newest motherboards you'll probably be okay. I have never had an issue with Linux and the Asus/MSI boards I've bought. Also like someone else said go with an AMD GPU. On a self build you can always send parts back. But if you get a laptop and it doesn't work with Linux make sure they have a return policy :) . They're much more cantankerous in my experience. That said if you stick with a mainstream Linux like Ubuntu you'll probably be fine with nvidia. I just prefer AMD gpu policies because they open source the driver code. I think both have had issues with Linux in the past, so sometimes you have to try a couple of different versions of the drivers. I tend to be conservative and not always go with bleeding edge. However sometimes that's what works.