"simple functioning laptop that works with a plain Linux kernel." Pick up an old Thinkpad, like an X220 or X230. The key is "old". For something old, even th

"simple functioning laptop that works with a plain Linux kernel." Pick up an old Thinkpad, like an X220 or X230. The key is "old". For something old, even the conservative distros like Debian will have a kernel and Xorg that support your hardware. Thinkpads are built well. For years I used old Thinkpads. The hardware and kernels worked fine. But the desktop environments became a disaster area with KDE 4 and GNOME 3. I hand-rolled setups with FVWM and then i3, but after getting tired of futzing with that and the lack of decent compositing window managers I switched to the Mac and haven't looked back.