Every month about 10-20 euro, but nothing recurring. I setup a list of my open source tools and I try to one at a time donate to each one. But its a slow process and feels too less, but I don’t want to do recurring ones, though I know it would be the best for the projects.

mailbox.org is a treasure, signed up for mail but it’s so much more useful than that. It’s a true replacement for me of what Google and Microsoft offers additionally to mail.

Great news! It’s much more beneficial for all involved parties. Also, as the article mentions, moving to FOSS doesn’t mean you’re on your own. Just like Microsoft “Partners” help with integration and smooth operation, there are similar agencies offering the same services for FOSS solutions.

Not only that, but feedback and bugfixes to FOSS software indirectly benefits others too instead of some Microsoft manager. So, good use of tax money benefiting citizens and everyone else!

Use Linux Mint Xfce or Xubuntu.

Regular Linux Mint might run OK, but you’ll get more performance with a more resource cautious Desktop Environment like XFCE.

Both can be booted in live mode too to do the file backup first, and then you can proceed with the installation.

I have a similar Notebook, which I’ve setup with Xubuntu as my DIY Chromebook. It’s not a Chromebook of any kind, but I put Vivaldi Browser on Autostart and mostly use it for browsing, works great and still runs apps fine if really needed.

I like that you as user “regedit” are installing openSUSE - I like :-D