I use a web app (and on Android) to read books and magazines from the library. The most recent issue of Linux Format magazine did a review of Ubuntu 24.10. I was surprised to see their “verdict”.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a perfect 10/10. It’s the Nadia Comaneci of Linux distros I guess.
Did they ditch Snaps? 
They didn’t ditch Snaps, but did mention Snaps are featured in the Software Center. This was just a one-page write-up and not an in-depth review.
I have a soft spot for Ubuntu but the snap store thing is a deal breaker. It feels that they try to be like Google with Android play store.
Ubuntu is the “Windows for Linux” but is not suited as well as “Gentoo” is for my old machines, although I do have 24.02 running on one of my machines.
In the same issue they answered a letter from a user having issues trying to update Ubuntu 16.04. LOL. I think anyone would have issues updating 16.04. It was a Long-Term Support release, but originally just had a 5-year support window. Since then, Canonical extended that to 10 years and tacked on a possible 2 more years of support.
Still, I wouldn’t recommend relying on that. I do have a few older computers I play with. These are probably 10-ish years old with a Core i3 and Core i5. The new releases seem to work pretty well for them.
One of my old machines has a core2, running Gentoo, a pentium dual core running a locked down Ubuntu 24,02, still running kernel 15 and my Windows machine that is running a i5 4 core.
Wish I had a better play machine, but all I can afford are the hand-me-downs, but I have fun with them!!!
Wish I could get my hands on a hand-me-down i5 machine!!!
I thought I had gathered you lived in central U.S. as I do. Next time I’m through your area I could drop off one of the laptops I don’t use anymore. 
I did check the one laptop.
I just decommissioned my only Ubuntu 16 machine recently - an OrangePi 2E+ running Armbian 16 (ubuntu 16 based).
All it was doing was running transmission-daemon (but it did have an XFCE desktop running too) - was easy enough to move that function over to a more robust Pi4 with 8 GB RAM running Debian Bookworm (when I say “easy” everything’s relative - by default transmission-daemon blocks web access from EVERYWHERE - why? Anyway - I was able to copy my config from the OrangePi to the Pi4 and that got me over the hump - rather than try to decipher the obscure looking JSON).
Just down the river about 60 miles south of Memphis in Helena, Arkansas!!! I could even meet you, say in Blytheville, AR or another place on i55, I have two Dell hand-me-down laptops, one with about the same specs as yours, and it has two slots for SSD and or HDD, but it is running W11 and has a lot of data stored. If you are serious about this I could post you, in a private message, my cell phone# and we could work out the details.
For interest I tried on a older machine to follow upgrade from command line as directed
Original from 17 to 18 etc after many hours downloading and running it failed but no error just wouldn’t boot
So tried clean install and no problem
That’s my preference now cannot be bothered with the issues just lazy I guess wanted a quick fix
I’m typing this on a Ubuntu 24.10 install - Dell E7270 (latitude)…
Only thing I didn’t like was the default install of Sayonara didn’t follow my “dark mode” theme everywhere (app presented itself with an ugly white title-bar and window control widgets on the right - where I’d moved everything to the left - where the always should have stayed since Ubuntu 16) - I fixed that by installing an earlier version from the Sayonara snap repo (1.8.0-beta1)…
I quite like it (24.10)…
I read another post about an app not following a dark theme. In that case Copilot suggested they download some KDE related thing because the app itself was developed with KDE in mind. Then the adjustment to a dark theme worked for the app, but it was a separate setting within the app and not the desktop environment setting.
I like using Plank and put that on the bottom and still have the default dock on the left. On my desk in the basement, I have three monitors. The main screen is in the middle and that’s where the dock is. When I move my mouse to the left screen it hits a wall and pauses over the dock. It takes some effort to force it past that.
One work around I looked at was making the screens wrap. That way I can go off the right screen and wrap to the left. I could just remove the dock I suppose.
By “everything” I’m only referring to the window control widgets : X _ [ ] - so that it’s like on MacOS…
(Gnome Terminal on Pop!_OS)
I have two Macs and a Pop!_OS desktop (and a Pi5 running Ubuntu 24.04) on my desk… The Pop!_OS has two monitors - but arranged “vertically”. Pop!_OS is my Synergy KVM server too…
To look at my screens - you’d probably be hard pressed to tell which are MacOS and which are Linux / Gnome… I don’t use Plank - I was a big fan of it some time ago - but now I just use the Dash to Dock feature in Pop!_OS (Cosmic Dock?) and Ubuntu… and even mostly MacOS / Apple icon themes too…
12 year old mac still at 50 not bad going, not many windows will be that price
