My university course runs for 4 years (no plans of repeating any semester 
), so 8 years is more than what I could ask for.
Yes. The reliability and after sales services of Dell is what made me skip the ThinkPad E14. (Here, Lenovo is infamous for poor services).
When it arrives, after wiping windows and installing EnOS (or Arch), I’ll compile the linux kernel to see how much time it takes.
My current PC is a an old Pentium. Didn’t ever try compiling the kernel. Dunno how many weeks it will take.