Alright, you know what? I'll be switching.

valentino , 10 months ago

Lets fucking go. Definitely try the three OG desktops Gnome, KDE and Xfce. The first two are the biggest ones with tons of features and a big development team. Also KDE has a memory print thats as low as Xfce which is the lightest.

noundus , 10 months ago

I strongly recommend XFCE if you can’t upgrade. It’s the snappiest of the easy DEs, and on a 10yo laptop, I suspect you’ll notice. LXQT is half a tier more difficult, depending on how much you want to tweak the work flow.

If for some reason XFCE is still too heavy and slow, you can go lighter than LXQT without giving yourself a headache, but the only true beginner openbox distro I know of is Mabox, and you seem to prefer point release distros.

Edit: You know what though? Try KDE first; if it’s fast enough for you, great!

s20 , 10 months ago

As a complete Linux noob coming from Windows, I’d say Mint is the way to go. If you’re worried about Cinnamon being too heavy, Mate is much lighter and a lot of fun. I’m especially fond of their file browser Caja.

Your second choice, Fedora, is my go to system, and I’ll cheerfully sing it’s praises. If you want to go that way, check out the KDE, Cinnamon, XFCE, or LXDE spins, but I will say it’s a bit less beginner friendly. Make sure you enable the non-free repositories when you log in for the first time!

Contort3860 , 10 months ago

Mint has an XFCE version as well, last I checked. So if Mate is too much then XFCE is there on Mint as well.

gonzoknowsdotcom1 , 10 months ago

VanillaOS check it out

s20 , 10 months ago

I love Vanilla too, but if he’s concerned Gnome is to heavy for his laptop…

gonzoknowsdotcom1 , 10 months ago

I’ve overlooked that by accident, hopefully with there 2.0v coming soon they release more flavors

s20 , 10 months ago

They’re talking about a possible KDE spin, but last I saw it was a low priority. Since all the custom GUI tools ate being made in GTK4. In order to do up KDE the way they’re doing Gnome and keeping the desktop as “vanilla” as possible, it would be a pretty big job converting all that stuff to QT I would think.

gonzoknowsdotcom1 , 10 months ago

Yea that’s true, gtk4 is exciting as well as android containers

s20 , 10 months ago

I’m looking forward to playing with a Nix container. I honestly can’t think of a single Android app I want to run on my desktop… But it’s gonna be fun for you!

gonzoknowsdotcom1 , 10 months ago

I completely forgot about the NIX one

Moobythegoldensock , 10 months ago

Kubuntu if you want KDE. Your hardware should run it fine. Mint XFCE or Xubuntu if you want to optimize for speed.

entropicdrift , 10 months ago

Just adding on that if you do go Kubuntu, OP, get the LTS 22.04 version. Since you’ve got older hardware there’s really not much point in using newer kernels. Ubuntu LTS (and therefore Mint, since it’s based on it) is just rock solid in the “just works” category as long as your hardware isn’t super new.

Nicbudd , 10 months ago

Linux Mint with XFCE is what I’d go with

Presi300 , 10 months ago

Ubuntu is SLOW on a HDD (has to do with the packaging format they use), I’d personally recommend trying fedora 1st and if that’s also too slow, MXLinux is great. Solus recently got revived, but it’s still got issues so I can’t really recommend it for a 1st distro… And finally, if even MX doesn’t run perfectly, try AntiX, the best Linux distro for really low-end PCs imo.

Lucia , 10 months ago

I’d personally recommend trying fedora 1st

Fedora is even slower though. In my experience Fedora on hdd loads as slow as win10. MX is great though, as well as antiX

DaPorkchop_ , 10 months ago

i’ve taken to running apt inside eatmydata, makes it run way faster since it doesn’t call fsync constantly. granted, you could end up in an invalid state if the power goes out, but that’s what UPSs, laptop batteries and backups are for :)

Sucuk OP , 10 months ago

Well uhhhhhhh, when my "laptop"s plug is pulled out or the power goes out, it's dead :D. might need a battery change or an ups...

entropicdrift , 10 months ago

Definitely get a battery change. Lithium batteries that old can become dangerous and even explode.

ICastFist , 10 months ago

I’d personally recommend Linux Mint with XFCE or Cinnamon. XFCE with the Suse style is light and has a built-in search on the start menu, which I consider a must-have.

Mint in general should offer the least amount of resistance for getting everything up and running, including the graphic driver.

Marduk73 , 10 months ago

Mint/Cinnamon is easy and a good transitional experience. Whatever you choose, don’t forget to donate whatever you can afford and think is appropriate. That helps keep these things available. GL

plactagonic , 10 months ago

Just try few of these from live usb and pick what you like.

You can use Ventoy and just drag all your ISO images to it but creating few USBs is easiest option for beginners.

There is nothing bad about Debian/Debian based distros and I think that it is great option I started on Mint, tryed Manjaro and get back to Mint.

Lucia , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago)

So, I have a few options. (kinda in order)

Linux Mint is the easiest one from the list, but all of them except Solus are fine. I personally recommend Mint or Debian, Debian Sid if you want latest kernel.

KDE Plasma (love the looks of it, though is my hardware enough?)

KDE should work fine, maybe with a bit of tweaking?

XFCE - LXDE - LXQT (because of “lightweightness”)

I daily drive Xfce and even on a beefy PC this DE is really great. It may not look cool by default, but it’s very customizable and powerful. And Thunar (xfce file manager) is really good now.

Cinnamon

Another good option

it’s because of Infinity for reddit.

There’s a fork of infinity for Lemmy, called Eternity. Not sure if it’s usable now though.

SaveComengs , 10 months ago

eternity is amazing and works really well, I’ve had no issues so far

Lucia , 10 months ago

Good to know! I will also check it out soon. Infinity was my only reason to use reddit actually.

baconicsynergy , 10 months ago

I’m using Eternity too and its fsntastic

wildbus8979 , 10 months ago

if you want latest kernel.

I doubt they need the latest kernel, their machine is ancient…

Eternity

FIFY

Lucia , 10 months ago

I doubt they need the latest kernel, their machine is ancient…

True

FIFY

Thanks, somehow messed it up.

rambos , 10 months ago

Linux Mint is the easiest one from the list

I have to try mint, so many people recommend it and its hard to believe something can be easier than popos

Lucia , 10 months ago

Mint is great, my brother used it as his first distro and had no issues whatsoever while I suffered with Fedora.

Sucuk OP , 10 months ago

Linux Mint is the easiest one from the list, but all of them except Solus are fine. I personally recommend Mint or Debian, Debian Sid if you want latest kernel.

No, I don't really need it.

KDE should work fine, maybe with a bit of tweaking?

I thought about that too. If that doesn't work out, Xfce/LXDE/LXQT it is.

Lucia , 10 months ago

Cool. Good luck on your linux journey!

entropicdrift , 10 months ago

Try Mint Cinnamon, if that’s slow try disabling animations. If it’s still slow, go to XFCE.

Mint really rocks at not requiring you to use the terminal almost ever. For sure the best choice in the “just works” category.

Madiator2011 , 10 months ago

Go with Pop!_OS you will love it :)