NMGKugers,
Akkana Peck writes: "My last laptop is a Celeron from about 2015 with 2G RAM
(it cost less than $200 when it was new, and came with Linux).
It's still quite usable and responsive with a lightweight
window manager (Openbox). Firefox takes a while to start up but
runs fine once it's up; same with programs like LibreOffice and
qgis. Just don't run a big desktop and don't try to run several
big programs at once.... I've tried to install Linux on
a few older machines with <2G and that doesn't seem to be enough to
run a modern browser without big lags -- presumably swapping.
We have several Raspberry Pi 3 workstations at Los Alamos Makers
(1Gb) and they work okay for learning programming languages like
Python and Scratch and Arduino, but the browser (I think they use
chromium) is quite laggy."
While we who are familiar can establish work arounds or do our programming it is noted that the deficits of the machines described are clear and, like old shoes, comfortable by daily use and adjustment.
I agree with Jared on this, we are not doing a friendly outreach or being encouraging to new normal users if we insist they make accommodations from the start. Alas, the old machines are good enough for programming and doing math, but for today's Internet and user expectations, No, not good enough.
Thank you, Ted P.