Dells work with Linux pretty well.
This was before Alienware got bought out, still the older case style. Printer, Graphics card and (loving) sound didn't work, plus I was, strangely, unable to format, so it was a huge mess.
And I could only fix the first two.
forget you Creative. Seriously. :<
Eventually I formatted the whole lot and started again with Vista. That is as it is now. Pretty good.