Buying a laptop from ebay

That may be true (and not suprising given the support behind the distro), however many universities will develop their own software which will be browser and os specific. This is very common for science and engineering diciplines. I would be cautious, and given that it appears it already has XP, and that you can get it for 20 or 30 bucks these days, seems like a not-altogether wise choice to go with anything else.
 
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