If you hate the brands, why do you post links to brands?
Did you at least saw what's there?
Lenovo, IBM, Dell ...

My first "laptop" was a monochrome Greenleaf 386, nice machine, never heard of them again.

Through the 90's I accumulated and still have a "fleet" of Sharp notebooks. OK but a little fragile.

Next a KDS - best display, flaky mousepad buttons and hinges...

Since 2005 a Toshiba - best machine I ever owned - typing on it now! Fairly rugged, although it doesn't travel much any more. Best cooling design, low speed but effective fan does not need frequent service, but easily cleaned. Still on original CPU fan. Great display. Cleanable keyboard. Durable hinge design.

I recently thought about getting a new laptop, decided instead to max out the ram and get 1TB HDD for the old Toshiba, updated from Slackware 12.1 to Slackware 14.1... hope it lasts another few years! I'll be lost if it dies before I do!

I can't say that I have any actual brand loyalty, but I would look at a Toshiba first if buying a new one.

First off the link &c posted more than IBM... more importantly convince of freedom!

How's this:
http://www.tomsguide.com/forum/65602...torious-laptop
http://reprap.org/wiki/RepRap_Options#Models
http://makezine.com/magazine/make-38...source-laptop/
...

Still get stuck on CPU and video brands\drivers...

I used to drive a semi truck, my first laptop was a Gateway and that truck beat that thing to death in a little over a year. I went to Best Buy and told the guy what my problem was and he recommended a Toshiba. So I bought one, 3 years and 360K miles later that thing still ran great. So I bought another one. This one's got over 200K miles on it.

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Yes, I call mine my "perfect" laptop, 50% because of the hardware and 50% because it seems to also be made for the perfect GNU/Linux, Slackware.

The plastic bits are strong where they need to be, reinforced with metal where required. The hinges hold the top where I put it and open/close without stress. The thermal design is perfect (I say that as an EE with much thermal design experience). The power supply, charger and battery seem perfectly matched (still on the original battery as well).

The first 5 years it travelled regularly, not so much since then. Lots of time spent in a briefcase and once bounced out the back of a rental car onto a parking lot without damage (my heart did not fare as well!).

The only actual repair I have had to do was the On/Off power button - one of the little plasitc rivets holding it all in place came loose several years ago and it sometimes took some fiddling to contact the micro switch on the circuit board. I was able to disassemble, repair with epoxy and reassemble with no unintended consequences. Still going strong!

I cannot speak for other Toshiba devices, but they got this one perfect.

*** I should add, the DVD-RW drive failed after a few years, but I expect that as part of normal operation for optical media and therefore do not rely on it.