I’ll get downvoted for this, but use Claude for Linux troubleshooting, not ChatGPT. It’s much better at both Linux and PC troubleshooting. Also, are you sure that your refurbishments are compatible with the board and remaining components? Might be worth trying to do a Windows 10 install (don’t actually install, just go through the steps) just to see if you get a GUI from that process.
Also, check and take this to LinuxMintForums.com as that’s more specialized. But try and get more info before you go over there. They’ll want full details.
A few weeks ago I dealt with my deceased Grandfather’s computer. He passed 12 years ago and once Grandma passed, there was no reason left to shrine it all off. He was a prolific artist. Played the piano, French horn and oboe. Painted, did etchings and lithographs, drawings.
He filled up the HDD on his first PC, a 2006 Dell Optima IIRC, and was on his way to filling up a spool of CD-RWs and his 2010 Dell Inspirion when he passed. Pulled the hard drives and connected them to pull what was on there. One part the mind of an artist - folders of 200 pics of clouds and rocks and mountains, paintings and works from the 60’s and 70’s propped up in the front yard (great light!), random pictures of cacti. Then, the mind of a grandparent - my cousins as babies, my youngest aunt younger than I am now writing this, baseball games and holidays. Most taken a decade closer to Gene Ziegler’s words than today. Saved and copied and backed up and copied again and uploaded for one more incarnation.