tomscharbach The laptop was a "get 'em in the door" Best Buy special that I bought for $129 in 2017
Dunno if it will help you, but I've had great luck with the "refurbished" computers I've bought on Amazon. Those include my Dell Precision and my wife's Dell Latitude. Nothing (worthwhile) available for $129, I'm afraid, but a Latitude for $2-something isn't a bad deal.
WetGeek I've had great luck with the "refurbished" computers I've bought on Amazon.
I use Optiplex and Latitude, and, like you, I buy refurbished and have had good experience.
In my case, I buy then-current 7000-series models sold by Dell as "certified refurbished". The computers come with a standard Dell business Optiplex/Latitude 3-year next-day on-site repair warranty. All are computers were returned by enterprise customers, some needing component repair and others just returned for whatever reason.
When I decide is it time for a refresh, I pick out the model I want from the Dell retail site, and then keep my eyes open at the Dell Outlet until the exact model I want comes along. Usually that happens within a month. I typically pay about half what Dell is selling them for retail. The reason I buy refurbished is that I can get a decent new business computer without busting the bank, and because I got the computer at about half price I don't feel guilty refreshing every 2-3 processor generations.
The $129 Inspiron 3180's (I bought two) were "throwaways", bought specifically for use at the railroad. The first died when the keyboard got sprayed with hydraulic fluid, and the other one died with a pop this morning, presumably of natural causes.
I bought a slightly better A9/R5/4GB/64GB Inspiron 3180 about a year after I bought the "throwaways". It was 2018's "get 'em in the door" special and I picked it up for $149. I bought it to play Red Alert 2 The Aftermath. It is the only computer I have at this point that will handle Red Alert 2's oddball graphics (I've never gotten Red Alert 2 running on Intel graphics), so I'll be careful with it if I take it to the railroad. I might use the Latitude 7390 (2018) I just replaced with a Latitude 7520 up there instead. The 7390 was more expensive than the 3180 by a factor of ten, but the 3180 is priceless.
I think that it is fun to learn about each other's buying habits and preferences. The more I learn, the more I discover that we are all a bit, uh, odd.
TROMjaro.
Dinimixis_DEMZ TROMjaro.
"This is a trade-free project"
Huh, never heard of that movement before. In that case I guess Solus is also trade-free, since it doesn't collect money or data from users either (except voluntary donations).
edit: holy moly, they have a 1144 page comic to explain the concept
https://www.tromsite.com/books/#flipbook-df_6562/1
Staudey holy moly, they have a 1144 page comic to explain the concept
It was probably written by a lawyer, LOL.
Staudey In these times where society has lost the importance of its principles and rights, privacy must be taken into account. Especially in GNU / Linux. At Solus I have several study methods, but I can't get away from Google or for as long as I want to.
And Vivaldi, but that's another story. 
Probably Pop! OS because of the ability to easily switch GPU modes so that only my dedicated GPU gets used.
I almost always use my laptop plugged in, so battery life is not as important as performance.
Not going to lie. As I wait for the new Kernel so I can boot with the ISO, my desktop is running pretty smoothly with Fedora 35. Actually surprised how much I like it. I have Solus on my other machines but current ISO does not work with my Radeon RX6600.
I switched to Fedora 35, and then to Mint. I do miss Solus, but the last update gave me just a black screen. I just want simplicity at this point. Mint does that for me.
I think I will test MassOS. Do you know it ?
olivir First I've heard of it. They say they are a completely independent distro (not based on Debian/Arch/etc.), and if I understand correctly they achieve this, among other things, by relying on flatpak and AppImages for packages, instead of a native format. At least that's the impression I get from this:
https://github.com/MassOS-Linux/MassOS/wiki/Post-Installation
they have basically stolen manjaros logo
Lucien_Lachance That is a good point; they look very similar ^^
brent when spring distro hopping I tried MassOS
It sounded interesting, and XFCE is one of the DEs I used for a while on openSUSE, so I thought I'd give it a try in a VM. I created one, providing at least twice the recommended resources. The installer program seems a little primitive, but it's functional.
At the end of installation, it reminds you to remove the installation media and reboot. I did that, and it rebooted to a black screen. After waiting a reasonable time, I did a reset, which usually closes and launches a VM, but this one just generated a critical error.
I reinstalled the .ISO file into the virtual CD drive, and did another installation. The results were the same as the first time. Two installations, followed by two failures to launch exceeds my upper enthusiasm limit for a VM, so I deleted it with prejudice.
Your mileage may vary. I assume that some users have successfully installed it and got it to run.
My choice of a non-Solus* distro has changed over the years, and currently it's Ultramarine Budgie. After experimenting with it in a VM, I was impressed enough to install it on a spare laptop and configure it as a daily driver.
My only complaint is that, as a Fedora descendant, it enables 156 unit files at startup (compared with 3 for Solus), so startup is very slow. So is shutdown. But while it's up and running, it's beautiful. Using .rpm for package management, just about every interesting software is available. And dnf is as convenient to use in a terminal as eopkg is for Solus.
* I sincerely hope I never hava a need for a non-Solus distro, but this thread starts with "If not Solus".
WetGeek so I deleted it with prejudice.
That is what i call a righteous delete. I didn't bother installing it. Now I have openly criticized online reviewers of Solus for wasting 5000 word critiques without ever having to install and use it....so I feel hypocritical dissing the MassOS iso...but it just wasn't interesting, subjectively speaking; you missed nothing imho.
Ultramarine is a beautiful non-Solus distro. Glad that has been a good #2 for you. I read the owner had to abandon the project so hopefully someone steps up.
brent I read the owner had to abandon the project so hopefully someone steps up.
I heard the same thing, but since then, there's been a constant stream of updates. At least as often as Solus updates, because every time I do a Solus update, packages need upgrades for Ultramariine as well. So, apparently someone (if not several someones) stepped up to the challenge.
They're still on Budgie 10.5.3, I think, but that hardly seems to matter in actual usability. I'm pretty sure that will be updted when there's more of a reason to do so ... like when Budgie 10.7 is released.
