“Also, can you still boot Ubuntu from a flash drive or DVD and test compatibility that way?”
Yes. Really old PC BIOS may not support booting from USB, but surely all support booting from DVD. Running from a DVD is slow, but at least it will verify the OS and hardware are compatible.
I installed Red Hat over 10 years ago, and that did require enough technical knowledge about partitioning that Joe Sixpack’s mother probably couldn’t do it. That computer did not have enough RAM to be practical (16MB!) even though it was enough for Windows 95. When I returned to Linux years later on a better PC, installing Ubuntu’s “Gloria” was a revelation of simplicity. I’ve been hooked on Linux ever since.
I was just a tinkerer back then. Actually I still am.
Not like you. :)
Anyway, my sad story...
Back in 2006, I was trying build a home theater system and struggled with drivers for the video card plus a couple of other things. Red Hat was a son-of-a-gun until someone put me onto Ubuntu. Duh! After that, I learned the value of the Internet and Linux blogs. Guaranteed, someone else had already tried exactly what you were trying to do, struggled and fought with it and finally figured it out and posted their success story on the Linux blog. The Linux community is great!
BTW, Ubuntu has come a long way too. It was still kind of clunky back then but is a VERY GOOD alternative to Windows or OSX. Best of all its FREE!
Anyway, I have installed the desktop version of Ubuntu on a number of PCs and a laptop then even tried my hand at Apache. I installed it on a PC and had an https encrypted web server running out of my house plus a secured/encrypted WebDAV service. Had a wifi webcam talking to it too so that I could login remotely and check activity at the house.
I had a lot of spare PC hardware laying around. :)