[yellowapple]

> Which do I pick?

OpenBSD :)

> Hardware?

Most OpenBSD devs seem to do their development on OpenBSD-running ThinkPads, so I'd say that's a good choice.

I ran OpenBSD 6.something (wanna say 6.1?) on my work laptop (ThinkPad T470) for awhile. Only significant issue was that the keyboard would intermittently wig out when booted via UEFI (affected Linux, too; legacy booting was not affected). I ended up switching to Slackware (needed to be able to run Google Hangouts and Zoom, both of which require Linux), but I'm strongly considering switching back now that vmd is a thing (since it can theoretically satisfy my Linux-requiring needs via exposing an X server to the VM or using VNC or something).