I've been using an HP dv6113us for ~4 years now, with every version of openSUSE through that time span working without any deal breaking problems.

When the laptop was brand new, I had some problems with the sound drivers, but contacted someone working on a patch for ALSA and was able to test it out before it was merged. Broadcom wireless is easy on openSUSE as a script is provided, but that should be a solved problem for Ubuntu as well; NVIDIA caused some problems which were easily resolved by installing the proprietary drivers. Today it seems that Nouveau is far enough along to function as a replacement for the proprietary drivers.

That said, the laptop was a gift and were the choice mine, I would probably go with a Thinkpad.