I'm in the market for a Linux friendly ultralight laptop to check web apps and run terminal, nothing fancier then that. Do any cheap systems exits these days? I was looking at a chrome book but apparently the mediatek chip doesn't play nicely with FOSS.
What about something like the Thinkpad X201? It's not ultralight but it is quite small.
Other than that I'd probably say a Chromebook with a Linux install. Second hand they are quite cheap and can likely do what you are after. A lot of them have passive cooling which is nice for a couch device. I was able to install libreboot on my C201P quite easily and now it just runs a traditional Linux install