Bought a shiny old Acer Aspire AX3810 for < Can.$30 & got it up and running.
After unsuccessfully faffing around with vnc and smb (client firewall shite?), I got nfs and http servers up, the bare minimum for this thing to work as a drop-in replacement.
It's pre-loaded with Linux Mint, an Ubuntu clone/reskin of dubious value (the reskin, that is). I was sorely tempted to nuke it for a clean install but Mister Lazy, hypervisor of my id interceded. It configures pretty much exactly like Ubuntu with 99.99% of everything pulled from Ubuntu repositories. Dumb, useless, but it does work. I guess not subject to Ubuntu's lame attempts at monetization, so that's something.
Slow AF but with 8G of RAM I expect it will do.
"What is Hamas, and why did it attack Israel now?"
Free Geek is awesome! I might volunteer there, and spread my brand of brazen ignorance among the underclasses. Apart from it being a 90-minute commute.
It turns out I probably would have spent less time on configuring a clean install as I have on a 'few, minor tweaks' to mint just so I can get it to serve vnc. Which isn't fait accompli by any means.
"What is Hamas, and why did it attack Israel now?"