I recommend Linux Mint (21.2), which a based on Ubuntu (22.04) and Debian. The cinnamon desktop environment it comes with is pretty similar to windows 7, which makes it easier to use. I think 21.2 will remain supported until 2027 as LTS.

It’s not super difficult to host your own gitlab instance tbh.

Lmao my university also uses centos 7 for their ancient-ass SSH server. Even the professors just told us to use a VM because they didn’t want to use an old version of clang anymore.

Yeah gcc and mingw took ages back when I learned cpp a few years ago. This was back in high school when I barely knew what Linux was, so it never occurred to me that I could do that. Eventually gave up on setting it up in VScode and used codeblocks and spent the semester dealing with that GUI.

It is kind of how it works. It slows down the absorption of alcohol.