Last time I bought a (refurbished) computer, I did research on https://wiki.debian.org/Instal.... Worked out of the box.

Wrong. I work in a French bank, and our contract management system is written in a French programming language: The variables are in French, the comments are French, the function names are in French, the operators are French... For example, "if" is "si". It's unbelievable for outsiders, but this is real.