I just installed the Ubuntu Linux operating system on a seven-year-old Gateway desktop computer I wasn't using. It installed easily and works well for my uses.
Linux is what you use if you get tired of Windows 10 phoning home to Microsoft about every little thing you do and you don't want to pay the "Apple tax" of higher prices for the Apple Mac. Linux is free. Linux works. Linux has available just about everything I need in a computer - word processing, spreadsheets, financial management, firewalls, browsers. This isn't the first time I set up a Linux system but in the past they were a lot more trouble to deal with than they are now. I used to set them up so that I could extend by a year or two old, outdated computer hardware that no longer supported the current Windows system, but this is my first experience with one that actually could run today's Windows. What can I say? It works.
I think the biggest step was letting it completely erase the Windows 7 operating system that was already on it - no big deal if you have the original software disk that came with it, but my late father-in-law lost it, so with this install I was working without a net. The hardest step was installing the free software on a USB drive as a "bootable" drive. There are free programs for it, but it took awhile to figure out. The install itself took half an hour after generating the bootable USB. Cost to this point - $9 for a USB drive. It just needs to be two gigabytes, so I overspent with my 8-gig purchase. (Edit: You don't have to completely erase the current system if you'd rather not - you can dual-boot with the existing system.)
I set up the computer as all computers are set up - just plug things into ports where they fit - and ran the Ethernet cable to the router, turned it on, and there was Firefox ready to launch and browse. I was connected to the internet, huzzah!
The next day I did things like connect my VPN (okay, that took a little while), set up a firewall (20 seconds), found and installed KMyMoney financial program (another 20 seconds).
It doesn't report back to the mother ship unless you tell it that's okay, so this is the thing for people who value their privacy. It's based on code that's similar to UNIX, so it's very stable, and some people go years without having to reboot. It's not immune to viruses, but there are automatic updates every day or week, depending on your wishes.
Okay, I set it up as a test, as I haven't done one in five or 10 years, but it costs nothing to keep it going, so I will. I think it will be more than a backup if one of our laptops dies. This is a keeper, and did I say it was free?