It sort of just works. Get yourself a big USB thumb drive (I use 8 and 16G) and boot off it. You'll answer a few questions to install.
I like the Thinkpads because they are so cheap ($200-300) gets you an i7 and 8-12GB RAM. The CPUs are compatible with SmartOS for KVM guests.
All that said, I really should write a definitive guide of how to operate SmartOS coming from the linux ecosystem.
Do you have any guides you wrote or used that you can recommend? I'm looking at getting SmartOS set up at home as well, but I know I've got a lot to learn.