The ThinkPads are generally a good choice for compatibility, but they don’t seem to be quite as good quality wise as they used to be. I have a Toshiba that everything works except possibly the modem, but I have never tried it as I don’t have a wired telephone.
If you want good compatibility, do not buy the latest and greatest. The newest stuff has to wait for Linux to catch up to it. So, laptops with SSDs could be iffy due to the hard disk controller support. Newer N wireless can be iffy as well, and you may end up having to buy a USB device or a PCMCIA card to get support.