At several locations of the beam delivery system (BDS) of a future linear collider (FLC), beam spot sizes ranging from several hundreds to a few micrometers have to be measured. It is anticipated that laser wires will be used for this task in any FLC design. In order to optimize a laser wire system, simulations and background measurements have been carried out. Results are presented from simulations of the Compton scattering for the PETRA scenario. Furthermore results from measurements of backgrounds like synchrotron radiation and gas scattering have been measured at the positron storage ring PETRA at DESY and will be discussed.