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

Hello there. I'm a beginner so keep that in mind. I have an old laptop (something like 10 yo). It has an HDD, 4 gigs of DDR3, an i3 4th gen 1.7
GHz and an NVidia Geforce 710M (Windows Game Ready Driver 391.35 WHQL which I think doesn't support Wayland). It also has CSM BIOS so yeah. It has the option of UEFI but the GeForce (I think) doesn't support it.

Currently, it has Windows 10 on it, but it has been veeeeery sluggish. I'm planning to upgrade the RAM to 8 gigs and upgrade to an SSD, but (even if I upgrade those parts) I don't want to use Windows anymore, at all.

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

Linux Mint
Fedora, though idk if the 2 GHz requirement is a big problem
Pop!_OS
MX Linux
Debian
Ubuntu and its flavors
Zorin OS
and maybe Solus? though the same problem with fedora.

Yeah yeah ik, all of these except Fedora and Solus are Debian/Ubuntu based.

DE options: (again, also kinda in order)

KDE Plasma (love the looks of it, though is my hardware enough?)
Cinnamon
XFCE - LXDE - LXQT (because of "lightweightness" :D)
Budgie
5. GNOME too heavy
These are some options for me. If you have any more suggestions, let me know. Also, are there any compatibility issues with my system for the distros/DEs?

Thanks for the replies in advance.

(Note: this was also posted in the m/linux@kbin.social magazine and the r/linux4noobs subreddit. don't ask why im still on reddit, it's because of Infinity for reddit.)

(Another note: If you saw this post before, it's because of /kbin's issues. I reposted it because no one saw it before.)

Cpo,

Prepare for the Nvidia card to be a pain in the ass, if so, maybe running the official driver on a LTS version of Ubuntu is the best option here.

WeAreAllOne,

Debian 12 with KDE and call it a day.

hellvolution,

Debian Stable (or testing) with the MATE desktop… I mean, if you wanna use AND learn a little bit of Linux!!! Debian is aways your friend, and it is super rock-solid! Avoid distros with poor documentation, and avoid Ubuntu at all costs… Ubuntu has weird bugs, just like Windows. If you don’t like Debian, I’d say: pick OpenSUSE or ArchLinux…

LeFantome,

With regards to performance, the distro matters but the Desktop Environment matters more.

For older hardware, XFCE is going to perform a bit better than GNOME. KDE is a middle-ground. Choose what DE you want first and then go for a distro that runs that well.

CaptainJack42,

I might look into getting a refurbished ThinkPad or something before buying new hardware for this laptop, you’ll probably get a lot more performance out of this than upgrading that old laptop

bloodfart,

Some other people said you’re thinking too hard. They’re right.

Back up all your shit, install Debian. Try out kde and see if it’s too much. If it is, install cinnamon or something.

zikk_transport2,

I think you will have to use legacy nvidia driver as the latest one wouldn’t work. At least such option exists for Arch Linux, no idea what’s like with other distros.

FuzzChef,

You’re having way too many thoughts about this. I’ll give you a simple choice: It’s either Xubuntu or Linux Mint.

Simply choose by which one looks better to you. Done.

In a year you can look back at your post and decide again if there is anything you want to change or you’re in dire need of a Linux hobby and Gentoo is all you’ve ever been looking for.

BautAufWasEuchAufbaut,
@BautAufWasEuchAufbaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

Linux Mint okay, but Xubuntu?
Isn’t the design gonna throw off any new users?

LovePoson,
@LovePoson@lemmy.world avatar

Mint it is, rock-solid for beginners

Ashen,

Why is it that in such posts I don’t see PopOS mentioned anywhere? I’ve been using it on my 8 year old laptop and it works really well! It had Win 10 on it previously and would crash if I opened more than 2 tabs on Firefox.

nestEggParrot,

Was it edited in now? I see it as his third choice.

Ashen,

Oh I meant comments supporting Pop. Don’t see anyone really mention it.

Acters,

Here is an oddball solution, the lightest way to have GNU/Linux and be able to use GUI applications like Firefox is to simply start a bare bones os install X-Server and something like dmenu, That’s it. Suckless.org, there is a lightweight dwm, a desktop window manager that you can use to tile windows and move them around and more. dmenu will be used to just launch the application. dwm is what manages the windows. Anything past that is based on what you need. It can be a fun challenge to make the most lightweight Firefox browser launcher.

For now, stick with what others have suggested. bare bones installations are usually meant for helping you single out a task and usually offer poor multitasking features until you put a lot of effort into installing and configuring more packages to a satisfying ease of use level.

FuzzChef,

That’s a horrible recommendation!

heartlessevil,

Seriously. Do not go for suckless unless you are an advanced user. It is not reasonable to change from a GUI OS to beyond CLI to literally “code it in config.h”. suckless is great but not for beginners.

PuppyOSAndCoffee,

I like puppy Linux. It can be a bit quirky but it is very very fast.

manmshuk,

@PuppyOSAndCoffee @Sucuk lmao

ZephyrXero,

XFCE is a great option. I consider it middle ground as low resource needs, but also has most of the features you want in a DE. Things like IceWM or OpenBox are even lighter, but less featureful

Molecular0079,

That’s exactly the kind of hardware that’d get a big a boost in performance by switching to Linux. Go for it! I have so many old machines that have essentially gained a second life when I installed Linux on them. You can’t go wrong with either an Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora-based distro. I am not sure what 2Ghz requirement you’re talking about, but I’ve run Fedora on potato class hardware so I think it will be fine.

If you start getting used to Linux after a while, I’d actually suggest Arch because of how slim of a system you can achieve with it and how fast in general it usually is. Of course, if this is your first time using Linux definitely try out some of the friendlier distros first!

Sucuk,
Sucuk avatar

Well, uhh, these requirements. But idk.

Yeah I've heard Arch is lightweight, but that might happen in like 5 years :D

Molecular0079,

To be honest, I think those are more guidelines than anything else. Most distros are largely the same in terms of overall performance. Perhaps some might have a bigger memory footprint due to more applications installed out of the box, but that’s about it.

Lucia,

These are basically system requirements for Firefox (well, except for disk space, obviously). It doesn’t matter much how lightweight your system is when you launch a modern web browser.

valentino,

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.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • linux@lemmy.ml
  • thenastyranch
  • DreamBathrooms
  • InstantRegret
  • magazineikmin
  • ethstaker
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • slotface
  • everett
  • rosin
  • ngwrru68w68
  • kavyap
  • khanakhh
  • cubers
  • provamag3
  • tacticalgear
  • osvaldo12
  • GTA5RPClips
  • cisconetworking
  • modclub
  • Durango
  • Leos
  • normalnudes
  • megavids
  • tester
  • anitta
  • JUstTest
  • lostlight
  • All magazines
    •