I did some research and couldn’t find anything recent that fits your issue. However, using your time settings gave me a tinted screen even though it should still be considered day time. Changing the sunset time to 11:59 PM made it work correctly, but setting it to 12:00 AM or later made it change early. I think this is probably a bug.

What distro and Plasma version are you using? Additionally, do you have it set for a specific time or based on location? If it’s the latter, then you need to check if geoclue2 installed.

I’m not really sure what to do then. You might have better luck asking on the Mint forums.

Separate drives is safer since Windows might overwrite the bootloader when it updates. If you can’t do separate drives, then you want the second option on your screen right now.

Are you using a single drive for both operating systems or giving each their own drive? If it’s the former, then it looks like you’ll have to manually shrink the Windows partition and then create the necessary partitions for Mint.

I had a laptop with a borked Windows installation. Unfortunately, it didn’t come with any kind of recovery partition or DVD. So, I took a chance on Linux and I liked it better.

Some manufacturers have outlets for refurbished devices. They’re not like bargain bin prices, but it’s something.

There’s also a lot of electronics recyclers on eBay. I’ve haven’t had any bad experiences there.

You could also try going to local thrift stores. Don’t bother with Goodwill though. They put all their good stuff online. Unless you live near one of their dedicated electronics stores, like the one in Tallahassee, Florida.

The only other option I can think of is checking out something like Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist. Unfortunately, you do need a Facebook account for Marketplace.

I’m pretty sure you’re going to have to use a live USB. You can’t modify a partition while it’s mounted and you can’t unmount a partition that’s in use.

You would just install one of the KDE meta-packages. After that you can select the new desktop environment when you login again.

The only thing to note is that some settings don’t always play nice between the two (for example one might overwrite settings on the other), so maybe consider making a new user account just to see if you like it.

What desktop environment are you using? KDE let’s users do this pretty easily by just going into the color scheme settings. I’m not sure what the process is for other desktops these days.

Is it 32-bit? If it is, then that also severely limits your options. Personally, I just throw Debian or one of its derivatives on old hardware like that. You may want to consider Q4OS. It’s Debian based and is geared specifically towards old and low-end hardware. Interestingly, it’s also one of only a couple distros that ship with Trinity as a desktop environment.

Retro gaming is definitely doable with 2GB of RAM, considering that older Raspberry Pi boards can do it with just 1GB. In that case you could try Batocera.

Some other ideas include running something like Nextcloud or a media server on it on your home network. In that case, I’d again recommend Debian.

I think you can do that with AntiMicroX.

I wasn’t aware that there’s a paid version. Based on their website it does look like they have a lot of standard stuff locked behind Pro. Is it just like an additional repo or something? I’m also not too keen on the fact that the upgrade doesn’t carry over to the next major version.

I’m pretty sure that’s Zorin. I’ve never used it myself, but from what I’ve heard it might be a good choice for OP’s person.

I was doing some quick research and saw someone suggest installing each OS with the other drive disconnected. That way you can first get each one working individually and there’s no chance of one messing with the other’s bootloader.

Do you have the os-prober package installed? I haven’t used Fedora in over a decade, so I don’t know if it’s a default or not.

I have a Thinkpad T480 that I’m very happy with. I believe it’s around 7 or 8 years old, but it works great. Unlike most laptops, it doesn’t have soldered RAM, so it’s easily upgraded. One downside is that most units don’t come with a lot of storage, so you’ll probably want to get a larger drive. I spent around $200 on mine plus another $100 for the SSD. It’s a great inexpensive laptop that’ll last for years.

My understanding of what happens when using separate drives is that one drive is given priority in the BIOS/UEFI menu and then people just use the device menu when using the secondary drive. Windows really only cares about its own drive with this setup, so the bootloader on the other drive is safe. I’ve never actually done this myself since the only system I dual boot on is my laptop and it only has one drive installed. To answer your second question, I just use my bootloader (GRUB in my case) to select which OS I boot into.

Some people recommend having Linux and Windows on entirely separate drives since Windows doesn’t always like to play nicely with Linux. The only issue I’ve ever had with them on the same drive was the time Windows ate my bootloader when upgrading from Vista to 7. Another thing is that you should install Windows first because it will eat the bootloader (as previously mentioned) if Linux is installed first. I also recommend keeping a flash drive with System Rescue CD installed handy in case you have to repair the bootloader.

Edit: Typo

This is what I do with my mom and her boyfriend. I’ve had them on Linux for a few years now and neither have managed to break anything.