I wanted to buy two laptops, one for me to run Linux and an identical one for a family member who needs to run Windows. We didn't want Windows 8 with a touchscreen, we wanted a regular laptop with Windows 7. If I were only buying a single laptop for myself I would very likely try to support one of the pre-installed Linux laptop vendors such as System76.

I found a really great deal on a refurbished Dell Latitude E7240 at Amazon.com that included 8GB of RAM and 256 GB SSD. (It appears that the price on this item fluctuates, I paid under $600.) Windows benefits tremendously from having the SSD, especially when running Windows Updates.

Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty Tahr) worked great with no tweaking.

I am really enjoying the long battery life and the overall performance of the hardware under Linux.

I prefer Lubuntu, so I tried Lubuntu 14.04. On this hardware, Lubuntu 14.04 had some issues. I didn't get sound or WiFi out-of-the-box and the touchpad was a bit jumpy. I tried Lubuntu 15.04 and it worked great, except I didn't get any sound.

The audio hardware in the Dell Latitude E7240 looks like this to lspci: