I need to replace my god old dell xps and i am a bit at a loss as of what to get.

I am basically looking to buy a 13inch laptop that i can put some flavour of debian on and that comes equipped with a dvd drive.

But it seems there are no 13inch laptops available any more that come with an optical drive? Really? In a world where people are sent to prison for ripping their owned and paid-for dvd's to their harddrives? I know i can get a little external drive but that is such a hassle when travelling, what's the point of a portable computer? Also, I feel some resentment buying peripheral gadgets when i pay over a thousand pounds for a machine...

Any advice welcome

obviously you can use external drive and pendrives too. I do not use dvd drive at all. Why do you need that?
Almost all of the laptops can run linux, the question is: how will you use that linux? for mailing, browsing, listening music ....?

Most 13" laptops are geared now to the "ultrabook" style design, which sacrifices the optical drive for the incredibly thin and light design.

When my trusty IBM T23 died a few years ago I got a year old i5 Thinkpad T410 from eBay for $200. Thinkpads are very Linux friendly.

Probably have to go up to a 14" size notebook.
Even a lot of the 15.6" ones I am looking at now, have a spot for, but no optical drive.
If you do decide to go with a 14", you might look at something like an Ultralap 440 from Zareason. (Linux laptop vender)

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Comes with a internal dvdrw drive

Dell Latitude E6420 XFR Rugged Series 14" i7-2620M 2.7 GHz 8 GB 128 GB SSD DVDRW

But it is not a touchscreen. I own a touchscreen XT2 with a internal DVRW drive. Touchscreens are OK but real work is still done on the keyboard and touchscreen is more of a , how can I say this, toy feature (to me).

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e6420's are nice laptops, although obviously 14" instead of 13".

Yeah, I can't think of too many 13's in the last few years that still had optical drives.

If you ARE willing to step up to 14", then there's a ton of new & not that old models. You can even go newer than the E6420 that rokytnji mentioned. The Ex430's still had optical drives, I know because I'm actually selling a E5430 right now after buying an E5450 (that does not, also I have an E7440 that does not, so Dell the Ex430 would be as new as you could go in Latitude).

HP you could go up to the Elitebook 8470P, after that they stopped carrying them.

Other manufacturers I'm nowhere near as good with as Dell & HP (since my company uses Dell & HP, I generally stick to them also).

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How about a laptop with native Linux, such as a Thinkpenguin, a System 76, or a Zareason. They tend to seem a bit pricey compared to, say, a bottom of the line Dell, because they tend to made of better components.

I have two Zareason computers--laptop and desktop--and am very happy with both.

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A refurbished macbook pro goes for around $800-900. There are some reputable sellers on ebay so you can get a 3-4 year old macbook pro for less.

I definitely disagree with that statement. When compared to Dell's Latitude line (even the low end), they don't stack up well IMO. The latitude you can order a 14" with 1080P resolution, none of the EXISTING models for any of these vendors offer that (both zareason and system76 I know for a fact are going to soon due to people like me constantly bugging them that not having a 1080P 14" stops us from willing to spend money with them). But for existing systems, I'd spend my money on a low end Dell or HP business system (the business systems have Intel wireless) anyday over anything they offer, since you're stuck with 1997-era resolution LCD.

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Dell's low-end line is Inspiron. I have had three Inspirons over the years and got my money's worth from each one; you will not hear me bad-mouth Dell.

Not a one, though, stacked up to my Zareason out-of-the-box. Plus, the Zareason came pre-installed with my distro of choice. Furthermore, when I had a small warranty issue, Zareason stepped up the plate and hit the ball out of the park. And it is really nice having hardware that just works with Linux.

If one wishes to look for a good source for refurbished computers on which to install Linux, I can attest that my girlfriend has had great experiences with TigerDirect.com, so much so that it's the first place she looks for computer stuff. I got a refurbished Latitude from them for an organization that I volunteer for; it retailed for $1500 and I got the refurb with Win7 (the organization in question does not speak Linux) for less than $300.

Just my two cents.

That's Dell's low-end consumer line. They also have a low-end business line (Latitude E3xx0).

I was a low-end consumer at the time. I had four kids.

As I said, I got my money's worth from every Dell I've ever owned. Over the years I've had maybe six Dells, laptops and desktops; each one has nicely done everything I've asked it to do. As a Linux user, though, I find native Linux even nicer.

If I were not buying Zareason, I'd likely still be buying Dells.

I'm forced to buy Dell/HP (I've had maybe 30 Dells over the years between Inspirons, Latitudes, XPS's, Vostros and Precisions, another 10-ish HP's) since I refuse to pay actual money for a 14" laptop that has lower resolution than my second ever laptop I purchased in 1998 (1280x1024). I think finally there's enough people like me that finally OEM's are starting to realize we want decent resolution. Both zareason and System76 have said they expect to have a 1080P 14" laptop before the end of the year, and I may actually end up supporting a linux laptop manufactur

Yes, I go through laptops quickly. I generally upgrade every year being in the IT industry, I feel pressured to keep up with the latest in processors. Once upon a time I had 5 or 6 laptops at once. My desktop does not get the same treatment.

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Maybe this article from MakeUseOf would help.

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/choose-...p-linuxubuntu/