So I’m looking for a laptop, but before you downvote and move on, I’ve got a twist: I’m looking for a laptop with Linux support that’s going to intentionally be console-only and rely on TUIs to make a lower-distraction device.

I was looking at older Thinkpads with 4:3 screens and the good keyboard before Lenovo went all chicklet with them, but I’m kinda concluding they’re both way too expensive AND way too old to be a reasonable choice at this point.

A X220 or T40-whatever would be great and be the perfect aesthetic, but they’re expensive, hard to find parts for, and using enough crusty old shit that this becomes yet another delve into retro computing and not one into practical, useful computing which is the goal here.

So, anyone have any recommendations of any devices in the last decade that have a reasonable keyboard, screen, use modern enough components that you can source new drives and RAM and batteries and such, and preferably aren’t coated in a coating that’s going to turn to sticky goo?

Thin(ner) and light(er) would be nice, but probably not a dealbreaker if the rest of the pieces align. This will be almost entirely used at a table for writing and such.

  • @wizardry_8
    2•2 months ago

    I have an old T400 which I use as a TTY cient, that I can SSH into if I need to. It has 8g ddr3 ram and I popped in an SSD, it can even take a second harddrive if you take out the CD tray!! It only cost me €20 second hand.

    But really, if you’re using the laptop as a console client, just look for a laptop with an internal SSD and that has a minimum of 8 gigs of RAM. Make sure the parts are easily interchangable as well, older thinkpads are perfect for that imo.