That was an interesting writeup thanks!

In my case I'm kinda setting my own compliance requirements. I'd think that a thin client having enterprise vendor LTS support for core libraries and CVEs will be plenty safe until I have 4 grand to spend on new client hardware. (Independent contractor with data center dedicated servers that actually run up to date distros for the actual work)

My other option is to use windows 11 since that fully supports the hardware I have but I really don't know if that's truly safer than a stable OS with another 6 years of official support lined up. I just didn't expect compatibility issues with a bog standard 9 year old chipset, nvme ssd and 16gb of ram.

Hardware incompatibilities are a bit hard to live with when it means burning your retinas and the whole point of this specific hardware being the sunlight readable display and the ability to survive the inevitable contact with water on a boat.

Considering how many servers still run Ubuntu 18.04 in production I wouldn't dismiss the idea of someone putting effort into finding vulnerabilities but those would be unlikely to target desktops anyway.