Can someone help advise me with upgrades for my IBM thinkcentre M52?

[guiverc]

I much prefer LXQt/Lubuntu over GNOME, even LXDE/Lubuntu over GNOME (3). I also prefer XFCE & MATE over GNOME but it's a personal preference. Which will be best for you, only you can decide.

Yes a faster computer will run faster if running Lubuntu over GNOME, however the difference isn't anywhere near as noticeable (or noticeable at all) to users as it's often just fewer wait-cycles of a super-fast-cpu waiting for input from the human, where as with slower boxes the human is waiting for their boxes.

The base of all Ubuntu systems is the same, so out-of-the-box differences are minor in regards hardware-support, and if something works in one, it'll work with others in almost every case, so Ubuntu, Xubuntu & Lubuntu will have the same support for the same release. The difference is the desktop or GUI over that base (or no gui for ubuntu server). Different releases, eg. 18.04/2018-April release may have different hardware-support to say 19.04 which came out a year later, but you can add HWE (hardware-enablement stack support) to 18.04 to close this difference...

[TheFu]

First, you are getting lots of good advice from everyone else posting here. Different viewpoints should help you make a good choice.

Thanks for all the advice ! I'm going give Lubuntu a try and see how things go, will update with specs and how I get on later. Just out of interest would a newer PC run super fast with Lubuntu compared to ubuntu, doesn't seam much difference? are there any drawbacks to lubuntu ?

Stick with 18.04.3 Lubuntu/Xubuntu/Ubuntu-Mate. That will get you the newest HWE software/drivers too. As someone new and not a developer, really need to stay on LTS releases. I've been around a long time and only run LTS releases to avoid many of those tiny little issues that happen on non-LTS releases.

I was thinking of using it as a big case for a raspberry pie, but I decided I want to keep some originality, when it boots up the screen displays thinkcentre logo, I guess the project goal is make the most out of the think centre, not dress something else up as a thinkcentre. Haven't seen a floppy disk drive in years, would it even be possible to connect this up to a raspberry pie ?

The thinkcentre logo is from the BIOS, so if you change the motherboard, then you won't see it, unless you find an image and put it into any new motherboard's boot image cache. I've not done that, but suspect you can make it happen.
I looked at a few images of the case for thinkcentre M52 - there seem to be lots of different types. They look like corporate models, so it could be they have non-standard everything inside.

The newest kernels have removed support for floppy disk controllers. If you want anything currently on a floppy, best to move it to USB storage or optical media or you can buy a USB-based floppy device. I've retained some older hardware with support for 5.25" disks, though I haven't gone through all the floppy media and moved it over. They are CPM and DOS and early Windows or OS/2 programs. Someday, I might finally use MathCAD or TK Solver! again like I did in college, but I doubt it. Saw a copy of Desqview/X a few days ago. Seeing that run could be fun for people at my local LUG, I suppose.

USB should work with a raspberry pi, but I honestly don't know. Google it a little. See what you find.

is it possible this may solve my bluetooth issue ? - Also I'm guessing any wireless cards that say they work with ubuntu will also work with xubuntu and lubuntu right ?

I don't use bluetooth. Too much of a security risk for me after being hacked on a 100% patched, Ubuntu install through BT. I disable it in the BIOS everywhere since then. To troubleshoot wifi, you'll need to get the exact chips used in the device. lspci, lshw, lsusb are tools to gather that information. Each has multiple options to get at exactly the information needed. For someone really new, it is probably easier to look up a device that is well-known to work. It might be just a little tweak needed to get the current device working with automatic updates
or
it might require hunting down some code from a coding site, compiling it for any new kernel released, and installing it. New kernels come out a few times a month, so you'd need to recompile and reinstall a few times a month. You will definitely learn a bunch, which is great if that is your interest. If that isn't your interest, ... well ... then $12 for a replacement can make you happy, probably.

Turns out that bluetooth hasn't ever been safe to use: https://www.howtogeek.com/438712/cou...acked-in-2019/

There’s ample evidence that Bluetooth is about as secure as a padlock sculpted from fusilli pasta.

Sorry, I'm no help.

[Autodave]

You also had asked about an SSD. That will definitely speed things up on there.