Wow, we're pretty similar. I've been using Thinkpad T40, T41 and T42 laptops running Ubuntu for the past 8 years or so. Everything works hardware-wise. If you t

Wow, we're pretty similar. I've been using Thinkpad T40, T41 and T42 laptops running Ubuntu for the past 8 years or so. Everything works hardware-wise. If you trash it, you're not out thousands or stuck waiting for a depot repair for a week. You're out the $100-$200 you paid for a spare and the time it takes to move the hard drive caddy over. The amount of stuff I've built on a hundred dollar laptop over the years...definitely a lesson in there about making do and getting stuff done. If you're a student, living in an emerging country, or someone who beats up their laptop regularly via field work: give an old Thinkpad a shot. A couple weeks ago, though, I broke my monastic vows and got one of the new Thinkpad X1 Carbons. It's got the 2560x1440 IPS display, 4 cores, and an SSD. Definitely a big step up, although the jury's still out on whether it's all worth it. As usual with new laptops and Linux, suspend-resume doesn't work yet. Also none of the Linux desktops I've tried have any idea what to do with a high density display yet, so I'm running at a lower resolution for now. :/ Supposedly the next Ubuntu 14.04 LTS release will have high dpi support [1]. [1] http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/02/ubuntu-14-04-high-resolution-retina-screen http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2014/02/ubuntu-14-04-high-resolut...