@sun ipads have tended to have fine processors performance wise - it's just that you're not allowed to use it, as you're only allowed to run the most bloated of proprietary software on them.

It seems that there is a bootloader exploit, so you can install Busybox/Linux - alas there is only proprietary installed methods and it'll probably be only usable as a headless webserver (but I guess, no proprietary-software requiring chipset support, no proprietary-software loaded); https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Apple_iPad_mini_(apple-ipad2,5) GNU/Linux will also run on the 512MB of RAM too.