I had a 2011 i5 Mac mini sitting in the closet after it stopped getting OS updates. By 2018 I figured it was long in the tooth even though I'd added more RAM and swapped the hard drive for an SSD. I pulled it out one day not too long ago, wiped the drive, and installed elementary OS and was surprised at how well it ran. I almost regret buying a new daily driver since the speed difference is barely noticable.