Linux was once the standard—but never entirely helpful—answer when asked what to do with an old computer. For many, it was something you tinkered with when you’d moved to a new machine and could afford to corrupt your old workhorse.
There was no guarantee that a Linux machine would play nicely with your existing data, sharing files with friends could be difficult, and the overall process could often have often been a lot more user friendly. None of that is true today.