Having a very affordable Linux laptop that only works well for development could be seen as an advantage: you use one machine for work, and the other one for play and personal stuff.
I had a big personal battle over this idea, but decided it would be silly to physically switch between two laptops based on what I was doing. Sometimes the activities are mixed together too: I'll finish a class and decide to check email or some other program for a couple minutes, then get back to development.