New Laptop questions

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Hi folks,

So my trusty workhorse of 3 years is wheezing and stumbling and yearning
for pasture. As laptops go the HP dv8000t was the best I've ever had,
and I've had a few (Starting with a side handled Amstrad in hte late
80's! ). It survived a coast-to-coast-to-coast Amtrak summer, and about
a hundred thousand air-miles. My only complaint has been the short
battery life, but then it is a desktop replacement, not an airbook.

So on to the new. After  looking around I think I will go with an HP
again, this time an HDX18t, and got a really good price on a quad core
(my new brother in law happens to work at HP!). Before I buy it, I
wanted to check and see if anyone has heard good/bad things about the
below listed CPU/graphics card components, with regard to running Linux,
specifically Ubuntu and CentOS. I did goole for a bit, but couldnt even
find mention of a linux driver for the NVidia card on their own
website ...

CPU :  Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad Processor Q9000 (2.00Ghz)
Memory : 6GB DDR3
Graphics : 1GB Nvidia GeForce GT 130M
Hard drive : 640GB 7200RPM SATA Dual Hard Drive (320GB x 2
Display : 18.4" diagonal High Definition BrightView (1920x1080p)

It also states that the Wireless card is a " Intel Next-Gen Wireless-N
Mini-card with Bluetooth" but I cannot get any other info on it, such as
model/drivers etc ....

any thoughts feed back welcome, I did look at the 'pure linux'
solutions, but nothing came close in the same price range ($1700 with
extra battery and tax and shipping included)

Richard