You can restore any old laptop with functioning hardware regardless of the initial operating system. Arch Linux would be the most advisable in any case; Unless ease of use is of concern. You can run it on literally antything since all you need to install is a kernel, networking tools, etc as needed instead of bloated uselessness. I dislike installing a distro preinstalled with Libre office software and a bunch of GUI stuff. I mainly only use the terminal
As a previous Reddit user I find Lemmy really hard to understand. One of the first things I run in to is Lemmygrad and it’s a website but based on Lemmy?? It seemed to be more popular than the @lemmy.ml instance or whatever they are. I’m hoping to get more in to the federated side and escape big tech. It’s a little daunting trying to learn about instances, pods, servers, etc and the difference between federated and decentralized. I’d like to be able to host my own instance from my own network