🐧 Thinking about putting Linux on an old laptop instead of just retiring it, worth trying?

Have an old laptop sitting in a drawer for almost a year now, five years old, still technically functional but painfully slow running the current version of Windows, to the point where even opening a browser with just a couple of tabs open feels like a genuine test of patience most days when I do occasionally try using it for something small and quick. A colleague at work suggested installing a lighter Linux distribution instead of just retiring the laptop entirely or buying a completely new one purely for basic browsing and document use, said it could genuinely give the old hardware a real second life without the exact same amount of background bloat that Windows apparently tends to accumulate naturally over several years of regular everyday use. Never actually used Linux myself before this, my entire computing experience so far has genuinely been either Windows or occasionally macOS through work devices provided to me previously, so the idea feels somewhat intimidating despite hearing from a few different people online that some of the more beginner friendly distributions available now are apparently genuinely quite approachable even for someone with zero prior real experience with the whole ecosystem itself. Looked up a few options and most recommendations online seem to consistently point toward one or two specific lightweight distributions built specifically with exactly this kind of older, less powerful hardware in mind, promising noticeably better performance on genuinely limited specs compared to running a modern version of Windows on the exact same aging machine. My main hesitation now is really software compatibility, I do occasionally need to open certain specific document formats and use a couple of particular apps that I am honestly not sure have proper equivalents available within the Linux ecosystem itself, or that might work differently enough to actually cause some real friction for my specific everyday use case going forward. Has anyone actually made this exact switch themselves on an old laptop like this, and did it genuinely give the old hardware a real usable second life, or did compatibility issues with your own specific everyday software needs end up being more of a genuine dealbreaker than initially expected going into it?

Gave an even older laptop of mine a proper second life this exact same way about two years ago, still using it today as a dedicated writing machine since it boots almost instantly compared to how painfully slow it used to feel running Windows toward the end. Wish I had made that switch years earlier instead of nearly throwing it away entirely.

Went with a lightweight distribution built for older hardware on my own five year old laptop last year, genuinely surprised by how responsive basic browsing and document work felt afterward compared to the sluggish Windows experience it had before. Took maybe a weekend of learning the new file system logic before feeling reasonably comfortable navigating it every single day without much hesitation.

Ended up using LibreOffice instead of the specific document software I was originally worried about compatibility with, opens and saves in fully compatible formats without much noticeable friction for basic everyday document use. A few specialized programs simply do not have real equivalents though, so check exactly what you personally rely on daily before committing fully to the switch yourself right away.