Do whatever works best for you.
I will say that after years and years of regularly switching workstation and laptop distros for a variety of reasons, after finally giving Fedora a shake, I’m done. I’ve installed it on both my primary laptop and desktops and can’t imagine switching again.
But I am still sticking with Debian as my primary server base.
Oh, just FYI I don’t game, so if there are some HDR features for gaming you’re hoping for, I can’t speak to that.
Running Fedora with dual HDR monitors just fine, but it’s entirely possible that something is off that I’m not catching. They’re also running off my Nvidia GPU.
I’ll just add that they look the same as when I used to run Win10 on the same box.
I think the real question is, what do you want to repurpose it for?
Because the answer to your question is yes, it is usable, but whether or not it’s capable of what you want to use it for, we can’t say without more information.
Linux installation appears to be possible. This is a wiki to an Arch on ARM distro, but you might want to look for something a bit more user friendly if you’re not comfortable with Arch.
https://archlinuxarm.org/platforms/armv7/rockchip/hisense-chromebook-c11#installation
Just remember, it’s a fairly low spec machine. Think of it like a Raspberry Pi with a keyboard and monitor built in, in terms of what you can hope to run on it.
This is 98% the right answer, but you drop them somewhere that keeps them intact, and believable enough so that people take them, and spend the rest of the weekend going to thrift stores trying to find an external floppy drive, and the next month trying to figure out how to get their iPhone to mount it.
lol.
Just search for Purism customer support experiences.
I’m honestly amazed there hasn’t been a fraud, or some other consumer protection type criminal investigation.
All that baggage, and their hardware is also laughably outdated and overpriced.
Which is unfortunate, because the concept is amazing and clearly there’s a sizable market for it.
Here is an example of just ONE flavor of Purism customer experiences:
Announce current gen hardware and current pricing.
Customer pays
Customer receives hardware 5 years later, after being told approx. 362 times that cancellation refunds are down, or unable to be processed.
Customer tries to immediately return the 5 year old laptop that was just delivered and is told “No Returns”
There are other variations that you can read about on various forums.
Look, the worst that could happen is that he murders you, but honestly, he probably won’t.
It’s more likey he’ll probably just wear you down emotionally until you support him financially, while he stays at home and takes out credit cards under your name.
On the plus side, I bet he’ll fuck like a racehorse on the rare days when he isn’t too dipped, or shit faced.
Edit: Just noticed you added that he’s a veteran with PTSD, and yes, that changes my answer: he will probably murder you.
Not just because he’s a veteran with PTSD, but because he’s clearly a massively damaged and dangerous person AND has war trauma.
Most likely outcome: strangulation.
No, it’s a way to say that Mint has become bloated and not a great experience.
I just switched to Fedora from Mint, and was impressed.
I recently switched my main Linux laptop to Fedora and I have to say, it’s probably the most stable and clean distro I’ve ever used.
TBF I’ve never configured an Arch system from scratch, so maybe it’s me that’s missing out.
The thing about Fedora that got me to stop switching, was that it just felt more adult then the various and fashionable Ubuntu based distros, or any other well regarded distro I used over the years. The right mix of stability and new features/support, pretty much out of the box.
Also, after tweaking Gnome a little bit for a more Windows 10 dock/bar style launcher/menu, it’s been perfect for me. Think I’ve been rolling with it since 38 now.
Anyways, best of luck with your new box.