just give 'em time. it’s still a bit early in the game for that play

iirc, they did do a limited regional test of subscription windows back sometime during win7.

rufus doesn’t help with preloads that you don’t want to or can’t, for whatever reason, overwrite with a ‘clean’ install.

perhaps higher amongst fediverse users, but not with the general public… default settings all around–including auto updates, no intentionally installed browser addons, maybe a wallpaper change. but that’s it… is the most common windows configuration we see, by far.

you could just point them to everybody’s favorite github-hosted script which has an option to unlock extended updates.

some of the schools around me just post on their web site or fb when they’re getting rid of old systems. they’re gone within an hour or two… they’re priced to sell fast.

for shits and giggles i took a win7 and a win81 straight to iot 24 with no problems on either. run the upgrade from a rufus’d (these were 2009-10 era desktops) usb made from a modded (upgradematrix) iso. going to 10 ltsc or iot should be the same process.

since you’re buying parts, you can specifically look for boards with 6-8 (more than that will require a ‘specialty’ board). 8 isn’t impossible to find. start a build on pcpartpicker, go straight to motherboards and filter 8 or more ‘SATA 6Gb/s Ports’, then sort low-to-high on price. you should find a msi pro am4 and an asus prime am5 that are quite reasonably priced and have multiple reputable vendors selling them.

otherwise you’re looking for an expansion card to add to a board you’ve already got or to expand one of those above for even more.

of course, you need the drive bays to hold them all, too. which can be harder to find at a reasonable and affordable price than motherboards and controller cards.

linux mint’s “installers” can boot into a live environment.

and even when you do know what you’re doing, you’re probably choosing not to host your own. at least not one that faces the public. a private mail ‘server’ that consolidates mail for you from multiple providers (and sends mail back out the same way) is different.

i have an old wood desk at the office. it just resonates and amplifies noise when i set a desktop form factor external hdd (with its attached rubber feet) on it. it now sits on a couple old-school foam rubber mouse mats.

don’t expect a 19 year old laptop to perform all the tricks something more ‘modern’ can do, such as transcoding video for a streaming media server. also note that a t5600 is not a ulv chip (draws as much as 34w under load, on its own)–so probably not a candidate to run ‘lid down’ without some outside help for cooling.

it’s not fast, it’s not power efficient, it has slow networking (10/100 and 22-year old ‘g’ wifi), and lacks usb3 for ‘tolerable’ speed on extra external storage space—but it will be ‘ok enough’ for learning on.

if you go with something like yunohost or even dietpi, you will pretty much restrict yourself to what it can run and do and how it does it. if you want more ‘control’ or to install things they don’t offer themselves, you’ll need to ‘roll your own’. a base (console only) debian would be a great place to start. popular, stable, and tons of online resources and tutorials.

i use dietpi, which is built upon a minimal debian.

afaik the major pc laptop vendors, dell, lenovo, hp, ms surface… all have at least some models now with glass or haptic trackpad.

you definitely encountered similar performance in windows. the processor isn’t speedy, by any stretch. kaby lake u-series i3 is slower than a desktop 4th gen i3.

maga nuts and the rest of the ‘far right’. truth and an informed populace are their enemy.

and you could change him into something else. links the cat was mine.

there is mv3 version of ubo here:
https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home

dunno how well it works on yt, though. i use dlp on a pc for the time or two a month i ‘need to’ look at a yt vid.

adguard’s free browser extension is also mv3 compliant (for chrome). i think the old adblockplus (disable ‘acceptable ads’ and ignore offer to ‘upgrade’ to a paid version) is, too.

if you haven’t added the flathub repository to your new debian kde desktop install, discover will only show you packages from debian’s repositories that were automatically configured during installation… even if you’ve added the flatpak ‘backend’ from inside discover–flathub still has to be added to your sources (see step 3 in link above).

once you have multiple sources of an application (for instance, ‘vlc’), discover will add a ‘sources’ pulldown (top right, next to the ‘install’ button) where you can choose debian system package or flatpak (or snap, if configured).

which source you use is entirely up to you. on my own debian desktop, i usually stick with debs if it has what i’m looking for, as i’ve chosen debian and have accepted their pace at which new software is added. if i wanted ‘bleeding edge’ i would have installed something else entirely on it. but you can certainly go ‘all flatpak’ if you wanted to.

i am evaluating endless os (basic install, not the kitchen sink version) right now. i have bunch of soon-to-be obsolete desktops and laptops i need to find something other than windows to load. i am very impressed so far. it’s nearly everything i’m looking for for these systems and their future home users.

it’s nearly as ‘simple’ as a chromebook but is based on debian, so it can do more than chromeos. but because of the ostree base, verified flatpak applications, and simplified desktop and ui, it’s a lot harder for a typical home user to ‘break’ than windows.

the ‘full’ endless install with lots of extra programs and offline content might pick up a few fans, too. parts of my area still don’t have faster-than-dialup internet available.

i had been set on peppermint for the lowest spec’d systems (things like c2d 4gb/hdd) and cinnamint for the others (mostly 2nd-6th gen, 4-8gb, some have sata ssd), but endless might just end up on everything unless someone specifically requests different.