Starting linux again

[Linux for blind general discussion]

I've been very busy the last few years and have been using the terminal on my Mac for a lot of the things I used to do in linux. Now I would like to get a laptop for linux again. I mostly want it for command-line use rather than for the gui though I suppose I may end up expanding to that at some point. I mostly used debian when I was using linux with a few excursions into arch. I am totally blind and use speech and braille but the more I can use braille, the happier I am. I used thinkpads a lot and also converted old Apple machines but I don't have a spare Apple computer right now and probably would go for Lenovo. Can somebody tell me which dists are now the best for installing linux, especially knowing that I want to use the command line a lot? If I get a Lenovo with linux on it, am I probably going to want to reinstall anyway and how hard is that nowadays? Obviously this email is prompted a lot by the thread about getting a laptop for linux. It really feels funny writing about this as if I was a complete novice when I used to install and set up systems all the time but I guess one has to restart somewhere.

The only problem I had with my Lenovos, and this was after years of use, was having the fan quit. Some of this was just the age of the Lenovos but it seemed to me that it was becoming harder to know how to set up the system so the fan worked right where at the beginning of my use of linux I never had to pay attention to fan settings. It may of course be that it was mostly the age of the laptops - I got years of use out of them - but I'm still a bit hesitant because of that.

I know this email covers a lot of territory - I'm basicly thinking out loud - so just respond to whatever you know and can address.

Thanks for any suggestions.

Thanks.