This is my range

I ended up moving to Linux Mint in 2018, as I need a new laptop and was annoyed that the current generation of Mac laptops didn't come with any USB ports. It's been my daily driver since, and I've been pretty happy with it in general.

You should be able to try either distro with a live usb which will give you an indication if anything will break immediately on your system.

I think people not following and using hashtags is the most common mistake people new to Mastodon make.

I still use it to get my news. Most news sites and blogs support it still.

I was sad when google reader shut down, but Feedly has turned out to be a great replacement as I'm too lazy to roll my own Tiny Tiny RSS server.