> The only thing stopping me doing (c) is identifying a laptop which I can stick Arch on and have all the hardware Just Work™ with decent battery life and sane

> The only thing stopping me doing (c) is identifying a laptop which I can stick Arch on and have all the hardware Just Work™ with decent battery life and sane fan usage. Check out the Dell Latitude series. I've got an E6230 (by now quite old) and everything just works. I also get 6 hours of battery life in Arch on the 6 cell battery (which itself is a few years old). The fan is off pretty much all the time unless you're doing something heavy like compiling or gaming. I've also heard good things about the Dell XPS 13, although I'm not keen to drop that much money on a laptop!