What may be interesting is that some HW manufacturers, like Dell, will gain competative advantage with linux users, development shops etc by making sure they have key management and or disable features in their products while other manufacturers don't. What I'd expect is the 2 bit cheapo laptop rubbish from PC world will not be suitable, but a Dell one (which is probably cheaper, but requires looking past the high street) would.
Linux users have always had to be a bit more discerning with their hardware - avoiding cheapest graphics, sound or other cards, printers and motherboards due to lack of driver support or documentation.