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Sounds like a use case for a ChromeBook. You would have to check which Chromebooks let you install Linux. Also some of the cheaper Windows laptops would do. In my experience, they all let you install Linux. What is your maximum budget? You can get refurbished ones for less than $100. If you are willing to pay $200, you can even get new laptops with up to 15 inch screen size: https://www.productchart.com/laptops/for_l…
I’d say an older gen Thinkpad. They’re usually the best value for your money if you’re looking for a bargain. You can find sellers who might be willing to ship internationally on eBay. You also have to factor in taxes or levies your country may charge on electronic imports.
There's the German Thinkpad Wiki [1] which helped me choose a model, because they list every component/spec/variant there with all their hardware details, bugs and typical problems (with firmware versions that usually just need to be updated before you install Linux). (A quick side note: Current mesa has issues with Haswell and Broadwell CPUs due to the (now still) incomplete Vulkan migration. Just as a heads-up) [1]…
im joking but this is actually a pretty good idea for very cheap
Nice price to value ratio, I think the screen is the biggest downside, but that's only in comparison to my MacBook.
I bought Thinkpad T440p for about 200 eur used. It was actually pawned by someone so I bought it locally no shipping was needed. It is an excellent device and hardware wise very powerful - i5-4300M, 8GB of RAM, 250GB SSD. Got lucky and it had battery with still 85% capacity left so that makes it run for about 2 hours, which is great. Only drawback it has is low resolution screen.
Maybe 8GB of RAM can be dealt with, if you're always careful to close apps and tabs but managing RAM or hitting the SWAP or OOMkiller is something I don't want to worry about if I'm doing work. Especially if you get in to spinning up VMs. 16GB minimum would be recommended from my end.
And the i5 4300M is a pretty slow chip. I had a i5 6600M and it's noticeable slower at web browsing than options from the last couple of years. I'd say 8th gen would be the lowest bar.