I’m sitting here in 2026 runnin Fedora 43 on a laptop from 2016, and honestly? It’s smoother than it has any right to be. My entire workflow lives in Brave and Obsidian, and this "old" i5 handles it like a champ. There is something deeply satisfying about taking a "boring" enterprise machine, slapping GNOME on it, and watching it run circles around modern hardware,It’s actually fuckin depressing that a 10-year-old laptop has better utility than 99% of the "pro" hardware being sold today.have a native Ethernet port and a full SD slot. Imagine that shit No $60 Amazon adapters dangling off the side like life support just to get a stable connection 🙄that's what I call good hardware built to last.#r/Linuxmasterrace
my common suggestion for people looking to switch is throw linux on your last laptop if its in working condition and see how well it runs vs your newer one with windows.
My favorite solution is to take my laptop from work being decommissioned, drop Linux on it, and have it last for years to come.
My wife is using my laptop from ~9 years ago. I'm using my work laptop from ~5 years ago, and my current work laptop is about to get decommissioned. My oldest will probably get the one my wife is using.
They all work great.
I just stuck a new battery in my laptop for its 9th birthday. Still going strong with OpenSUSE Tumbleweed.