Re the web browsers I think you’re right. You may get away with a more lightweight browser like SeaMonkey or Falkon, maybe like 1 tab of Chromium lol

Distros I’d try on that would be Linux Mint Debian Edition, Debian w/ lightweight DE like LXDE or Xfce, or Arch Linux 32 if you really want to make it minimalist. Gentoo if you’re very adventurous but with my EEE PC I found compile times took up to days.

Working at a computer shop, Lenovo ThinkPads are usually pretty fine, but the main fault we’ve seen with them is lack or completely missing thermal compound. On one occasion I saw my colleague’s machine not post, and IIRC we had to reset the CMOS to get it back up.

I had to do a double take between this comment and the one by davidgro@lemmy.world

Don’t be so certain - I’d recommend Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC IoT over Windows 11 any day

God the school’s response is so sleazy and unapologetic