Well there is the Stop Killing Games initiative started by Ross Scott and supported by the Pirate Parties. If they succeed, companies selling games in recent years will be required to either keep supporting their game or to make it available in a way so that others can ensure its continued support.
When this is achieved the step to free older games is small.
If you live in Europe you have the chance to support the movement by vote in the upcoming elections.
Soon there are European elections. Voting for the Pirate parties and getting other people to vote for them is a good way to stop this. They are fighting hard against this law. Especially Patrick Patrick Breyer of the German one. Anja Hirschel, who will follow him, will likely continue with the same vigor.
Donations are also a great way to support. Donate to the Pirates, EDRI, or local groups opposing this.
I use it on a Pixel 5 and even there it is fluid while browsing. Only on Youtube there is the slightest stutter for HD Videos. Heavy sites like Discourse fora or Cryptpad or such work flawlessly.
Maybe Kolibri OS?
Its an amazing project, booting from a single floppy disk into a full graphical OS with multiple tools. And that on PCs with almost no RAM.
I sometimes use it to backup ancient PCs.
Example from Networking Hardware:
Cisco has had multiple cases where they likely built exploits for Government spyware into their devices. And they have far to many vulnerabilities which are found. This leaves two options: Either their security is so bad that intelligence always has backdoors ready and governments shouldn't use them, or at least some are backdoors built in accordance to NSA demands and goverments shouldn't use them. https://thehackernews.com/2016/08/nsa-hack-exploit.html?m=1
On the other hand Huawei, far less security issues, even offered to open their code for checking of backdoors and to let goverments check all updates. They are shunned by western governments and partially even banned.
And where do maintainers for the new parts of systemd come from? The larger systemd grows the more parts of it will be neglected. Also in regard to people checking commits, opening up doors for exploits like the one in xz.
This is handled in the modem Firmware. Linux just has to supply "User has dialed number x, go into emergency mode" and then route the audio.
This is solved for all Linux phones as far as I know. From Openmoko over N900 till Librem 5.
Ivanti Connect Secure VPN
So its spreading via a closed source VPN software. Why should you even use that when there is great VPN software available on Linux which works reliable for decades?
Well of course you miss zero trust connections, multi-cloud readiness, award‑winning security and proven secure corporate access ...
The point is, they already did. 99% of webservers run Linux. They are all out in the open and hackers love to get their hand on them as they are likely to have mailservers on them and they have a public IP so they can always be reached.
And most of them do not get hacked. And those that do mostly get hacked due to bad passwords or bad website code. I administer one and see the thousands of attacks running up against it daily (most are just attempts to log in with basic credentials). And of course I see the daily influx of updates from Linux.
If a new security flaw is seen, its often quite difficult to use. And with Linux somebody makes a patch before simple tool for hackers are out. With Microsoft products you wait till the next patch day, in the best case critical exploited bugs are patched in days. Also security flaws in closed source products are often easier to exploit and tools to use them are available fast. (Such flaws are often already discovered in open source products by third eyes and testers before they make it to production systems.)
Of course there are exceptions to the rule, like heartbleed. This was an easy to exploit flaw in an often used Linux service and it caused a big turmoil because many where to slow to patch their systems.
Also of course if Linux gets more popular on the desktop more software will be an attractive target for malicious actors and some software may get popular before many people take a look at the source code. But the situation will still be much better compared to closed source systems.
(Also of course more closed source software will be made for Linux then)
An SSD really is the solution. You believe it just speeds up boot time, but it does speed up nearly everything else too.
Your Webpage? Your Browser loads it, stores new data into the cache and stalls while waiting for the HDD. Or it knows elements are in the cache and stalls waiting for them.
You click on the application menu? You PC tries to load 20 icons, tiny amounts of data an SSD has ready in a microsecond. Your HDD takes a full second because the seek between the 20 places where the icons are on the HDD takes so long.
I have some very old PCs I manage (mainly for relatives) and one couple uses a Core 2 Duo E6400 which should be quite similar to your PC. This PC is very usable for daily browsing with Ubuntu 22.04, boot time is about 25 seconds, then about 10 seconds to load up ebay. (I admit I optimized boot time quite a bit) The other PC they have is even slower than that, I just do not remember the exact CPU right now. That one is even used for old browser games similar to candy crush.
Of course it is not what I would use given the choice. I want to compile code in seconds, watch videos in glorious 4k and play a 3D game from time to time. But for them it works perfectly well, so well that they deny my offers to upgrade them
I upgraded my PC in Oktober with a RX 7600, enough for older games, silent and efficient. I really looked forward to enjoy Witcher 3 at highest settings. A few days later rumors about Witcher 3 Next Gen. How dare they! Now I can't push every single slider to max and enjoy 120fps!
In all seriousness: The update is great of course and I applaud CD Project Red for releasing it free. Besides the better graphics (Which even the 7600 can handle at Full HD without high RT settings) they also included tons of fixes and quality of live improvements the community made over the time. I can really recommend it.
I even bought it at full price years before I played it because I enjoyed Witcher 2 so much and was certain they will make a good game.
Kubuntu 8.04.
It was the last release with KDE 3 and very polished for its time. Many applications from back then have vanished by now. Kopete was Magic, supporting all IM protocols (Including Yahoo video calls!), Amarok was so reliable and sleek.
Of course most things have improved since then, but I remember it fondly.