On Windows the system wakes up when connected or disconnected from an AC adapter.

Does it? I could sweat my work laptop (windows 10) doesn’t , and I’m pretty sure I’d notice cause I sleep and move it a lot during a working day.

Is it a windows 11 thing? Or something to do with the so-called “hybrid sleep / hybrid boot”? (Pretty sure that’s disabled by corporate, and for friends and family I always disable that when their laptop goes in a boot crash loop). Does BitLocker matter ?

What if you put your laptop to sleep cause youre done using it and intend to pack up. Then you unplug it and put it in your backpack?

Ah, I didn’t even consider ads in the UI would be a thing. How disgusting

Regarding DRM, Netflix (and probably others) require the Widewine library to play back DRM content. This works perfectly fine on a normal Ubuntu PC, but does not work on the Pi because the library does not support ARM, only x86.

So Id just get any normal PC. Used enterprise mini PCs can be had for quite cheap, and they are small and efficient, and high quality. Search for HP, Dell or Lenovo mini PCs , or 1 litre PCs.

None at all? If so how? My friends with Apple TV get an obnoxious amount of ads in their YouTube app for example.

There is one potential (small) hurdle you should be aware off: Secure Boot.

Basically some laptops came with Secure Boot locked to only allow booting Windows. These days Linux distros should still be able to boot even if the laptop was windows-only back then (thanks to the so-called shim bootloader). If you get an error about secure boot, just go in to BIOS/UEFI menu and disable secure boot for now (after installing Linux you can google the steps to enroll a key to re-enable Secure Boot).

Beyond that, just flash a USB stick with Linux Mint, boot the laptop, smash the keyboard to find the button for BIOS menu or Boot Device selection, then follow the installer. Installing Linux should take less than an hour. Way less if your computer is fast.