I had a net top thing from asus that had worse specs than that running fine a few years ago on AntiX. It was just used as a thin client mostly but did the job.

There’s an outage on aws and various other services which started at the same time. Have a look on downdetector

Unless it was one of those netbook desktop things, holy hell those were bad. I managed to get AntiX running pretty well on one, and tuxracer lagged a LOT. Was pretty useful as a cheap thin client though.

…Cup of tea, sir?

I mean it depends on the hardware - you can get unlucky with that, sure. I’ve usually installed timeshift so it can be easily restored if necessary, but I’ve never had to restore any of the systems I setup besides my own - since Ubuntu 12.04 - around 12 years ago.

LTS is what I go with so no bleeding edge updates, and I’ve not setup anyone else’s system that has a dedicated GPU so many of the common issues don’t apply in my case.

However, I remember from 8.04 - 12.04 having a complete fking nightmare with WiFi adaptors. I get a twitchy eye just thinking about ndiswrapper…

Linux is bad at audio therefore it’s bad at everything? Interesting. Fair point about audio though, if you’re doing anything to do with that then stay clear of Linux. Raspberry pi audio is bad even by Linux standards, lol

I’ve set up Linux for various family members over the years, most recently for my Wife (lubuntu lts on an old laptop) and it’s always been smooth, unlike windows where I’m having to fix their problems every other week.

Key takeaway here is I had to set it up for them, none of them had a chance in hell at doing so themselves. For simple tasks, once setup correctly - it’s great. For an end user experience without initial help, the slightest thing will throw them during setup.

I’ve honestly had better luck with retro games on Linux than windows. Half the time lutris can auto install the game with minimal input, and patch the games etc - and even with abandonware titles I just pointed proton at them after installation and no issues.

If you’re on older integrated graphics however, I will admit it can be a lot more problematic.

I used a Miele hoover as a shop vac, hoovering wall plaster, muck and sawdust etc and pretty much abused it - replaced all filters and gave it a good clean and it still works like new. That was 5 years ago and it’s still going fine.

I’ve been running a 3070 for a few years on Pop OS, zero issues.

Pop!_OS is a good option too imo. I game a lot on it with no issues, even something like cyberpunk 2077.

I think it depends on your setup - if you’ve got a good 4k HDR TV then by all means you could just watch then delete and it would be worth it. But yeah good point, may as well do 1080 otherwise, if you want a collection. I’ve only got 90 movies at 1080p and struggle to justify keeping more than that.

I find the best way if you’re on a budget is to have a small collection of 4k movies, with an even smaller rotation of new 4k movies - then have everything else at 1080p x265. Still want at least 8TB ideally, so down the NAS rabbit hole we go…

I use it because I’m more comfortable with working with it under the hood than Windows (day job experience). It’s also less of a PITA when it comes to bloat, updates (not just OS, general software too) and telemetry.

I did use Windows on my desktop until about a year ago to be fair, as I didn’t feel gaming was quite good enough - but after trying again it’s brilliant now. No reason to ever go back.