Veraxis

In terms of being "safe," if you mean in terms of data collection/privacy, just because big companies have an interest in Linux, that does not mean your Linux Mint install is sending telemetry back to those big companies with your personal data.

Big companies have an interest in Linux because Linux is the backbone of server infrastructure all over the world. They contribute to the code, but the code is open source, so the community could see if they were putting some kind of telemetry into open source projects, or the community could simply fork the code if a big company tried to do some other objectionable thing.

I am not aware of any guides, but I know that in order to get the terminal to look like Manjaro's, you will need to install the zsh shell with the powerlevel10k theme and zsh-syntax-highlighting. I believe they also use either zsh-autocomplete or zsh-autosuggestions.

At least, this was how it was configured back when I used Manjaro several years ago.

I prefer tlp, as it gives me more granular control than autocpu-freq, which I have also used. It allows me to retain control over certain things like USB auto-suspend behavior (a problem with some power utilities like powertop), and the audio powerdown on the headphone jack when on battery, but which was causing popping and audio cutting in after a delay whenever I started a video or application with audio.

Also, if a pkgbuild was updated for security reasons, now Manjaro is putting users at risk by continuing to serve the old version

Hold up, isn't that last point just a criticism of delayed updates in general? By that logic, would Manjaro be putting users at security risk by holding back the main packages?

Interesting. As a former Manjaro user (several years ago now), my problems with the distro were more with their approach to package management and the AUR. They withhold packages for the main repositories, but the dependencies for AUR packages will always assume the latest packages, so I would constantly get into these dependency deadlocks where I could not install or could not update certain AUR packages because the necessary dependencies were the incorrect version. I view this as a fundamental technical problem with their approach, and was my main reason for switching away.

Hopefully the new structure/leadership will result in technical changes which fix their issues. Though if I am being honest, the vision of a Manjaro with rolling packages is basically just a reskinned EndeavourOS, so I am not sure what they would need to do for me to recommend this distro to anyone.

The best way to go into it is to think of it as learning a new skill. Some things are done differently, some things may require a bit more setup the first time you do them, but once you have your system where you like it, it should be possible to use without thinking about it too much.

Printers generally work fine in Linux. This is one area where Linux does surprisingly well.

For all the games, I'm not sure. They may just work with Wine or Proton, but it is far from guaranteed. I have had good results running even quite old games from the late '90s through platforms like GoG, though.

Good news I guess, but at the risk of looking a gift horse in the mouth, didn't Intel previously lay off a bunch of their linux and driver devs just last year in July/August?

Sources:

https://www.phoronix.com/news/Intel-SLM-Driver-Orphaned

https://www.techradar.com/pro/linux-at-risk-recent-intel-layoffs-are-putting-key-projects-at-risk-experts-warn?pubDate=20250814

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/major-intel-linux-driver-projects-are-dying-due-to-intel-layoffs-and-corporate-restructuring-compatibility-and-reliability-issues-could-increase-over-time

I have been out of the tea game for a while, but here are a few personal favorites that I come back to:

Adagio Tea's Scottish Breakfast ($0.11/g)

Vahdam Tea's Daily Assam ($0.06/g, but you have to buy 340g)

Yunnan Craft's Zhong Guo Hong ($0.09/g)

Yunnan Sourcing's Black Gold Bi Luo Chun ($0.12/g)

That's a pretty open-ended question, but I think other folks have made some good suggestions.

Assam, Ceylon, and Yunnan teas tend to be the best in terms of price per gram, and can be found from multiple vendors.

Did you want specific vendors/recommendations?

Based on this reddit post where someone added a graphics card and swapped out the power supply in the same model of Dell Inspiron 3847 for a standard ATX power supply, I would say the odds are good that it is a standard 24-pin ATX.

Edit: I guess the Mobo was also swapped, so I may be wrong. OP should definitely check.

But this is good advice in general because Dell are notorious for doing non-standard shenanigans with their PCs, so good to check this for anyone else coming across this post.

Yes, power supplies can absolutely fail due to age. Namely, the electrolytic capacitors that smooth the incoming AC (and in other places smooth the switched secondary voltages) are only rated for a certain number of hours of operation before the electrolyte starts to break down, and when they fail, the electrolyte begins to boil and can build up pressure and then rupture with a bang exactly like you describe.

Temperature and operating time are both factors in how quickly capacitors fail, so the fact that the computer was left on most of the time for 12 years means that the caps were probably running at elevated temperature nearly all the time.

In terms of what makes a "good" power supply, the short answer is that, unless you have an electrical engineering degree, the reputation of the brand and the efficiency rating of the power supply are your best indicators. Big OEMs like Dell are likely trying to cut costs in their desktops, so the power supplies in OEM desktops may actually use cheaper components and worse build quality than the power supplies that enthusiast PC builders use in their rigs.

Many modern power supplies are rated on the "80 plus" rating system-- meaning the power supply is more than 80% efficient, although nowadays many power supplies are more like 90% efficient and may be rated "80+ gold" or "80+ platinum". A more efficient power supply is losing less power as waste heat, so the components run cooler and last longer.

That looks like it is a standard ATX power supply, so almost any power supply on the market should fit. Unfortunately, most 80+ gold PC power supplies would be much more expensive than you probably want, but something like a humble Thermaltake 500W power supply would be 80+ rated, made by a brand people have heard of, and costs around $40. For 5 bucks more, it may be more reliable than some no-name OEM power supply replacement.

I use plain Arch for desktop, but for servers I use headless debian. A media center is sort of in between, so up to you. In terms of resource usage on an older laptop, I expect the choice of DE would matter more.