[jshen]

I had an optiplex desktop that did not work well. It was a giant pain in the ass to get video working properly, and it would often not wake from sleep.

[pyre]

OptiPlex covers a large number of models and hardware, just like "ThinkPad" does. I'd imagine that the Ubuntu Certified Hardware list specifies models that are known to work well.

[jshen]

1) It was the computer my employer gave me, I didn't have much choice (well, I could have requested a mac).

2) I don't want to spend $500 to find out if certified really means everything works.