You might be able to find a super lightweight desktop distro out there (I think Damn Small Linux can run on those specs?) or you could repurpose it as a basic server of some sort like you mentioned. Unless you wanted to invest in some cheap old ram to throw in there and maybe make it a bit faster, then I think those would be your best options.

I’ve been using it on my Fedora laptop for the past week or so and it’s really nice, even in alpha 1! Can’t wait to see how it turns out fully finished!

I was so happy about this! Been using it on my work MacBook and have been excited to use it on my main laptop!

Windows 10 before I used Linux full-time, though I did try out Windows 11.

My only major complaint is their free-tier is a bit lacking compared to what Skiff had (or I guess has, but not for much longer.) I think their platform is great, and definitely worth paying for, but given I’m a broke college student that’s not much of an option. Also their support for third party clients (or lack thereof) isn’t great, though I don’t use those as much. Otherwise I like it quite a bit!

Generally I have when I use Gnome or KDE on Linux, though I have started to prefer MATE, which doesn’t have Wayland support yet afaik. I also started using FreeBSD on one of my computers a bit more, and I believe Wayland support is still a bit wonky on that right now. But as soon as Wayland support is there I’m definitely switching to that on the daily.

I personally like Podverse.

Yeah, I’ve had issues with it too! I installed the latest Windows 10 on my mom’s laptop after replacing the hard drive with an ssd, and it took me way longer than it should have to do something as simple as move files from the old hard drive to the new one! And a week later, she calls me with issues related to the auto backup OneDrive thing, and I had to troubleshoot that from 2.5 hours away. If she didn’t need Photoshop and Lightroom, I would have installed some sort of Windows-similar Linux distro for her. I also have had so many issues with Windows 11 for school that I just stopped using it on bare metal and just have a VM for the one program I need for my CS classes.

While I get your point about not expecting all software to have the same workflow, keep in mind that learning a new one isn’t always in the cards. The reason people don’t complain when learning Adobe is because they are probably starting with it. But if they complain when switching to GIMP it’s because they have to spend the time to learn a new system instead of getting their work done. And especially in a professional environment, that just ends up causing problems.

While I get your point about not expecting all software to have the same workflow, keep in mind that learning a new one isn’t always in the cards. The reason people don’t complain when learning Adobe is because they are probably starting with it. But if they complain when switching to GIMP it’s because they have to spend the time to learn a new system instead of getting their work done. And especially in a professional environment, that just ends up causing problems.

As someone who has been plagued by broken, hard to repair laptops before, I went for the Framework Laptop. Of course, your needs and wants might be different.

System 76 laptops are probably a bit better for Linux considering they were built specifically for it. They also have more variety in what kind of laptop you can get, whereas the Framework only comes in a 13 inch “ultrabook” form factor and a future 16 inch gaming laptop. And battery life I believe is a bit better than the Framework.

However, Framework still works really well with Linux (I use Linux Mint on mine, and it works great.) And the flexibility in being able to repair, upgrade and customize your laptop is really nice. Plus, the battery thing is slowly but surely getting fixed, and while it’s still not entirely great, it has gotten me through the day as a computer science student.

I feel like it has gotten better for sure. I use Linux Mint on mine, and while I don’t think it’s quite been “fixed” yet, it’s improved enough to be noticeable.

This is awesome! Definitely going to be something I play with a lot when I’m bored at work

So I still technically use Windows, but only because I need it because of some software for school, but I still use Linux most of the time. It’s mainly the small yet super annoying things in Windows that caused me to switch. Like how everything has to automatically try and back up to OneDrive until you dig into the settings and disable it, or how it constantly badgers you to use insert Microsoft product here instead of what you want to use. Plus as a computer science student, and someone who spends a lot of time in the terminal, Powershell and the Windows command line feel so old and incapable compared to the Linux terminal (WSL has helped with some of that, but not all of it.) It’s just small issues that cause big issues when you run into them, because it just makes simple things harder to do than they need to be, usually for the sake of pushing their products.

Totally get it! Windows 7 looked/looks amazing! Personally I have an XP themed setup on my Ubuntu install. There’s just something great about old UI design.

I personally like Mate, especially with i3 as the window manager.

I mainly listen to Linux Unplugged, Destination Linux and Linux For Everyone and really like them.

Haha fair, I guess that is a pretty objective statement. In my opinion, compared to some other distros and operating systems, it’s pretty bloat free, but I guess if you’re used to something else that is even more bloat free that you would probably disagree.

Debian

-Simple distro free of too much bloat without being too bare-bones

-Stable, but can also be changed to be a bit more updated if you want that instead-

I’d say it’s all up to whether your desire to distance yourself from Red Hat and it’s distros is great enough to be worth the effort of backing things up and re-installing everything. If you feel better using something that isn’t made by Red Hat after what’s been happening, then switch. If you feel like the effort to switch from something you are already deep into using isn’t quite worth it, then there’s no issue in sticking with it.