I have an Asus Eee PC from 2009 running Puppy Linux (as a secondary device).
As already pointed out you will need a leightweight distro and desktop environment.

https://distrochooser.de/ (available in English) can help you find the right distro, it takes into account the age of your device, your Linux knowledge, use case and a lot more.

My data is my data. Period. Or at least it should be.
Abuse of position as dominant provider of search engine (incl. censorship) and mobile OS.
Labour Practice.
e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Google

Similiar reasons apply to Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, PayPal, X and so on since well before Trump & Co.
e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech

Appologies for my aggressive tone. I really hate these companies / their owners and what they are doing to our society, wellbeing, and humanness. It could have turned out so much different, if not for their greed and egoism!

My story is quite similiar, though I was working in theoretical ecology. Turned out that I could handle the computers we were working with and their linux distros better than anything else. I went on for another 2.5 years and then quit. I aquired he LPIC-1 and LPIC-2 certificates from the Linux Professional Institute, worked as a pure Linux sysadmin for half a year and am now working as a sysadmin for Windows in Linux in my 5.th year.
Where I live you need at least some kind of certificate (or some on the job experience) and the will and ability to learn. In my experience most companies that are working with Windows will be quite happy to hire someone who doesn’t shy away from the terminal and/or cmd.

That’s weird. At least for Linux and Android it was free, last time I checked.

It is free and open source. https://github.com/CollaboraOnline/online

Download via F-Droid needs additional repository: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/downloads/fdroid/repo/?fingerprint=573258C84E149B5F4D9299E7434B2B69A8410372921D4AE586BA91EC767892CC

“NOTE: main server is offline, you’ll see the message that you’ll add a mirror, that’s expected. To make it skip the main server, open repo details and toggle off first collaboraonline.com entry.” (https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721)

I don’t think I can “speak” neurotypical. I’m imitating NT behaviour/language. And no matter how good I act “as if”, it will always be an imitation. It’s like repeating words of a language I don’t understand. I can learn what to say under which circumstances, but it will never be the same like actually speaking that language.

My NT girlfriend has two (other) autistic friends. Apart from that there are none or at least none, who would describe themselves as ND or “on the spectrum”.

There was nothing wrong with his assessment and I’m still grateful that he nudged me in the right direction.

A long time I experienced myself as “normal”. It didn’t occur to me, that “all the others are weird” can’t be right. While reading about ADHD a friend of mine also read about Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. He often said (both teasingly and matter-of-factly) “You most certainly are autistic”. Eventually I had enough of it and looked it up. The Wikipidia article convinced me blazingly fast (“wrong planet syndrome”) and I got diagnosed within half a year by the age of 34 (i.e. 8 years ago by the time of writing).

At the moment I’m watching TNG (The Next Generation), which is what was running on TV after school when I was a kid. Inbetween TNG episodes I watched SNW (Strange New Worlds) as well as DIS (Discovery). Before that I watched PIC (Picard) season 3 as recommended by a friend.

When I was a kid I loved TOS (The Original Series) most, later followed by VOY (Voyager). Nowadays my favourite is SNW. Most of the series I like(d) instantly. To DIS however I just came back after quitting at season 2 when watching the first time.

I’m (binge-)watching Star Trek. It is my way to destress and to cope with uncertainty since I was a child. It’s the only constant in my life and as an autistic person I’m really gratefull for such. Normally I would just watch one episode after work just like I watched one episode after school when I was a child. It helps me to relax.

That depends on where you live. In Germany afaik you can get diagnosed either by a specialist, but have to pay for it yourself, or at an autism centre, where it’s hard to get a place, but you don’t have to pay for it.