Hi Mike
bigger question is what will Linux not run on. Broadcom wifi can be a bit of a problem but i have not had issues with that in a while
consider going to the installfest 1st and 3rd Saturdays at UAT 48th and baseline Tempe 10-4PM we have had very few that we could not get working correctly,
usually due to lack if time to sort out any bugs( showing up at 3pm works if there are no bugs)but....
we have even installed to apple G3. Brand new (less that 1 yr old) CPU or MB models may have drivers/microcode that have not been added to linux yet so that may be the only thing to stay away from or trial and error
Linux is smaller and faster than windows but avoid too old say a Pentium4 64 bit would work but you would still have by todays standards a slow computer
Todd