Sorry but at this point my money is on the Post Office being incompetent and dishonest. They have form given the ongoing Horizon scandal.
Its belly baking in the hot sun
This needs to be the top comment in my view.
Pretty much any new laptop running any operating system will be able to adequately do word processing but they will all feel different and they will be a range of price points. This is why involving your wife who will be the user for this device is critical. One of the key advantages with Apple is that you can try out every current model in person at an Apple store. I don’t know how easy it is for you to get to one, but if you have the option I would definitely recommend sending your wife to do that.
They were members of the wheel group
Docker isn’t virtualization. It’s a way of packaging applications, their dependencies and configuration. Docker containers can be run together or segregated based on configuration. Essential in much modern software- no more this dependency for x clashes with that dependency for y / ‘works on my machine’ / I can’t install that version.
The containers share a host Linux kernel (which is virtualized on non Linux systems). Docker runs fine on ARM but only using arm containers. It’s tricky to run x86_64 containers on an arm host, especially with a different OS
On checking: You’re correct that the royal mail and the post office are separate organisations. They split in 2012. At the time of the majority of the active development of the horizon scandal, they were the same organisation however.
I would still want to apply the same test - not just demonstrating a notional or paper loss, but that something has actually been stolen and acquired by some other party. This was one of the signal failures with the horizon scandal: that it was simply a bookkeeping error and they were unable to show beyond that any theft or loss on their part or gain by another party.