While I liked Windows XP & later W7, Windows 8 was terrible and I didn't care for the direction that Microsoft was going with their operating systems. About 10 years ago, I started looking in to the Linux OS's.
I started with Ubuntu and haven't looked back. I also like Linux Mint. Lubuntu is good for older computers. Lubuntu is a lighter version of Ubuntu and is great to bring back and use older machines. There are plenty of good Ubuntu tutorials on Youtube, good luck.
CGato
What browser % search engine do you use?
Linux has a lot of potential but i think it suffers from too many versions rather than fully maturing one (Linux Mint is perhaps the best) I have used every major Linux distro and some minor ones but have had problems with them all, and which fail to provide the degree of customization I can rather easily obtain with Windows.
For instance, having stiff arthritic typo-prone fingers, in order to quickly and easily copy and paste, I wanted to remap the CapsLock key to ctrl+c, and then the Esc key to ctrl+v (and then Esc to NumLock), and the middle mouse button to ctrl+x (cut) and also launch programs via hot keys, all of which i can easily do with AutoHotKey , which did not take too much time to find out.
However, despite extensive searching and different proffered possible ways of remapping the CapsLock key that would continually work I found none, except for Fedora, but which had other drawbacks. The Linux alternative to AutoHotKey, "AutoKey," lacks the maturity of AutoHotKey, as do many other Linux alternatives to safe Windows freeware (but Firefox and OpenOffice are very good, and Firefox has no peer for power users, though you need to stick with Firefox ESR for now. .
Then there are the extensive customization provided by such Windows programs as listed in post #10 .
I do have Xubuntu (i found it better than Lubuntu or others for older hardware ) installed on a old laptop alongside XP, yet the former will not recognize the wireless card despite having the drivers. I have to use a external dongle.
But thank God we have alternatives and such tools, which i see to use for Him and for good.