I’ve got an old dual core tower with a new 500 GB HDD sitting in a caddy under my desk. As soon as I get around to it, it’s getting a clean install of Linux Mint thrown on it.
My current machines are ~10 yr old hardware [$20 used] with a new SSD [~$100] thrown in.
Quite a bit cheaper than a new iPhone...
[[As soon as I get around to it, it’s getting a clean install of Linux Mint thrown on it.]]
download and burn a copy onto a disk to give it a test go- I like the mint cinnamon version- kinda like windows feel to it- you can try it out on the disk without installing it, and even make changes (ie set up desktop how you like it- install programs etc- and it won’t change anything on your actual desktop- as soon as you reboot, it gets rid of all the changes (you’ll have to reinstall programs and make changes again every time you boot to the disk unless you make a new disk with all the changes made- I am not sure how to do that though))
It’s a good way to give it a try without actually installing it