Cheap new Linux laptop advice?

[Matt Graham]

On 2018-06-14 14:58, Victor Odhner wrote:
> A friend needs a cheap Linux laptop for light duty business work:
> Libre Office, printing via USB connection, WIFI, email, and light 
> browsing.
> His cap is $400 but he would prefer closer to $200 . . .

4G RAM will probably be fine for this.  My old laptop (Thinkpad E530) 
has 4G and handles all those things pretty well.

> REFURBISH? In past discussions here, I’ve seen references in the past
> of a good refurb provider in town.

The first 4 IBM Thinkpads I had were refurbished, and they worked fine. 
Why would the seller need to be local?  If the hardware dies, your 
options are very limited in most cases no matter where the seller is.  
This means that you have to have reasonably tough hardware, which might 
be more difficult at $200.

> CHROMEBOOK?

No.

Things have gotten a lot better wrt Linux support on laptops.  Anything 
over a year old will probably just work, and if you're looking for 
cheap/refurb, it'll be old.  Most wireless networking requires firmware 
to be loaded before it works, so the initial install may require a wired 
network connection.  I'm biased towards IBM myself, because installing 
and configuring them has always been easy and they have Trackpoints.  If 
I wasn't going on vacation starting Tuesday, I'd sell this guy my old 
laptop for cheap.  (Not enough time to get a new Thinkpad delivered 
before I leave.)

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