I have a Librem 15v4. Last year I finally gave up on waiting for Crimson
and just went the Debian route to the then-latest, 12/bookworm.
Experience discussed here: PureOS Crimson (Debian 12) on Librem 15 / Librem 13 (x86-64) - #10 by JJR
I’ve been thinking of doing that as well. I acquired a 2007 iMac (64-bit Intel chip) that was supposedly dead, but it really wasn’t. I tried to put PureOS on it but got stymied by 2 non-free firmware bits: Broadcom Wi-Fi chip and AMD video chip. I tried hard to get the bits from the Debian repo, but I could not make it work. So I blew off PureOS, burned a CD with the Debian 12 netinstall, booted off that and Voila! The Debian installer recognized that it needed those 2 non-free firmware bits and offered to DL and install them. I said “do it” and it worked flawlessly. I’m running Debian 12 “Bookworm” on a 17-year-old machine while my 6-year-old Librem 15v4 is still stuck on a Debian 11 variant. That’s lame, so I’m on the verge…
I’m also running Debian 12 on a Lenovo Ideapad as my travel computer, especially for overseas trips. (I’m reluctant to take the Librem out of the house/country). The troubles I hear with the Librem 14 (not to mention the $$$), which would be the obvious choice for a travel comp, have given me pause, which is why I went for a throwaway Windows cheapie like the Lenovo. It does have a cover for the camera (which is why I chose it), and I insert one of these into the headphone jack, so it does a reasonably passable job of blocking. Even with only 8Gb RAM, it stills runs pretty snappily, but you have to watch out you don’t open too many apps
I also have a Librem 14v1 as a backup computer, but I like the bigger screen and numeric keypad on the Librem 15v4, so I’m still using it as my main box. It’s plenty fast for my needs. At home I run a 22" monitor off the side even though I know the Librem 14v1 will run two external monitors.
When I went to Germany a few years ago I only took a phone and an iPad. Nobody going or returning bothered me about what data I had, but I didn’t want to risk any trouble with a Purism box.
I’ve been helping people put Debian on old boxes such as Dell laptops and iMacs, and I get a kick out of helping people keep using their old boxes instead of them ending up in the grinder or, worse, the landfill.
Installing Linux distributions on old computers for newly converted Linux users occurs often in VanLUG.
I bet plenty of LUGs are into this. The one I go to seems to have more non-newbies, but I’ve just helped a newbie get Debian onto a Dell laptop.