I had Debian running on a min-spec Air from the same era (2012 or 2013) and it is absolutely usable. Probably not for gaming though π
It has xubuntu on it now. It is going to be used for my kids to access the Lego spike robotics stuff, and it works great for that!
I gave up prepping "main quest" stuff when my players wanted to find out more about some curse affecting them, and decided the most logical thing to do is kidnap the head of their religion (who one of the players directly reports to), interrogate him, and hold him hostage. Instead of, you know, asking π
They eventually backed off of that plan due to concerns of some other PCs, but it was pretty close