Yep, agreed -- the big problem with Windows is that they keep on increasing the specs!

Linux is precisely the right way to go; I run the latest releases of Ubuntu on my 12-year-old Lenovo T420, and it's speedy and smooth ... because even the latest Ubuntu just doesn't need that many resources. (When one's OS isn't constantly running DRM processes to prevent the user from doing something that a big corporation doesn't want, it means the OS can be a lot more efficient and resource-light, lol).

I think you're right -- a lot of people probably consider Linux a bridge too far. That's too bad, because really it isn't ... as I wrote in a blog post last year (https://clivethompson.medium.com/linux-on-the-laptop-works-so-damn-well-that-its-boring-29014b347941), one thing that makes Linux even better these days is that so much computing has moved over to the browser, which means Linux can handle it just fine. One of the barriers to Linux back in the 00s is that so much of our software was still natively installed .... and Linux versions often didn't exist. But now that the lion's share of what everyone does all day long on their laptop is just happening in the browser, Linux works fine for it!

That's the reality; but I agree with you that perception hasn't yet caught up to that reality ...