[glitch273]

Take a look at System 76: https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/galu1

The specs are very well chosen for most developer users at a very reasonable price. From your requirements, I believe the only thing missing is native VGA support, which I'm sure you can easily fix with a simple adapter.

[pan69]

I'm really interested in these but I've heard reports on flaky casings made of cheap and thin plastic. Do you have experience with these yourself and if so can you share your findings?

[dsr_]

We've bought several over the last five years or so. The cases have always been perfectly adequate -- not single-billet aluminum, but you're not paying MacBook prices, either.

They ship with Ubuntu and are generally comfortable with Debian.

[sz0ka]

Yeah the VGA thing is optional, but our laptops do need some output, that is compatible to our beamers... :/ Buying an adapter is not the problem :D!