School laptop under $200?

Hey everyone. I'm looking for a cheap laptop that I can use for programming class. Like, under $200 cheap if possible. I dont mind buying refurbished.

I'd like to start learning how to use Linux and I was wondering if I should buy a laptop without windows installed. I assumed that doing so would make it easier to find something cheap, but it doesn't seem like it makes much difference.

The only other thing I'm going to use it for would be to the play the game Dominions 4, which doesn't have high system requirements.

Minimum Linux requirements:
OS: any 32 or 64-bit distro
Processor: 1 GHz
Memory: 1024 MB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL and libSDL1.2
Hard Drive: 500 MB available space

So, any guidance would be much appreciated. Are there any laptops out there that you would recommend? I'm not interested in chromebooks.

It would be hard to find a laptop without Windows installed for that cheap, you will likely find a Windows 7 refurb for around $200 or less. Go on www.newegg.com, they have quite a bit in that price range.

Could I get some opinions on this?

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/dell-15...1305283372.p?id=mp1305283372&skuId=1305283372

Hmm... I'm guessing that one doesn't have Wi-Fi. How about this?
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/hp-geek...1219668747764&skuId=7065158&pid=1219668747764

Pendejorick said:

Hmm... I'm guessing that one doesn't have Wi-Fi.

Click to expand...

Are you even reading these specs?

Wireless LAN: Yes

Click to expand...

Oh, oops. I was looking at

Wireless Networking
None

Any opinions on these 2 laptops?

Get the Latitude over the HP.

Could you explain why, please?

I would second Voyager's opinion. Latitude over HP. It is a business class laptop. Specs are lower, but the build quality is much higher. We have these at work. A fiar bit slower compared to the never systems, but still running well for their age.

Sounds good, thanks.

And it should run Dominions 4 fine?

Looks like the Dell laptop has an NVidia graphics card, should be able too as the games graphics don't look to complex. As for learning Linux you could dual boot on that computer.

However if you are wanting to learn more of the Linux os and not hurt your disk space I would recommend spinning up a Linux cloud server on a site like digital ocean. I recently had one of the system analyst at my work express an urge to learn Linux. I started her on Ubuntu MATE and found she spent so much time learning the GUI side of the house that learning the command line never even happened.

Ok,thanks for the help everyone!