[R] Off-topic? Linux laptop for R

[memilanuk]

Another +1 here for the ThinkPad series... they seem to run Linux 
distros about as well as most, and are pretty robustly built.  I picked 
up a Lenovo ThinkPad T530 last fall with Windows 7 Pro on it, and have 
it currently set up to dual-boot into openSUSE 12.3.  Ubuntu 13.04 
probably ran the smoothest on it, with a bit of tweaking (add PPAs for 
tlp and bumblebee to better manage battery life and the nVidia 
graphics), and Mint 15 was close.  On distros like CentOS or Debian with 
older kernels the battery life was atrocious.  The base machine itself - 
4GB RAM upgraded to 16, 500GB HD moved over to the UltraBay in lieu of 
the DVD-R drive, 256GB SSD for the main drive, i5 processor... yeah, it 
runs R acceptably ;)