Way back in the early 90s I needed to use LaTeX for university. The dos version was awful and couldn't handle large documents. So the options were (1) a nextcube for $$$$, (2) Nextstep 3.3 for PCs for $$$ (some faculty had this), or (3) linux. So I downloaded slackware on dozens of disks.
You had to configure the kernel, which wasn't too hard since the autoconfig walked you through it. The hardest part was setting up X11, which required a lot of manual config, and if you screwed up the timings you could destroy a CRT monitor. OpenStep was an option, so there was a moderately friendly windowmanager available.
Learning Emacs was also fairly unpleasant, but that was the best option for editing TeX at the time.
Everything would work, until it suddenly would break. But nonetheless I was somehow able to get that thesis done.
Ugh, modern linux is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much better
It's a contemporary 4 core processor. It can run anything.
Heck, my 8gig 2010 MacBook with a core duo runs gnome on Debian without any issues.